Money digest: today’s need-to-know financial news | 25 May 2016

Another day, another story of ineptitude by the taxman. According to The Telegraph and other news outlets, more than three million people may have paid the wrong tax after chaos at HM Revenue and Customs left callers waiting for over an hour to speak to staff last year. In a savage report by the National Audit Office, it said that a decision to cut jobs in HMRC meant that call waiting times tripled to 47 minutes last October as paper tax returns were due. The Whitehall auditors said HMRC got its timing badly wrong when rolling out its digital strategy, which involved moving more personal taxpayers online and reducing demand for telephone and postal contact. More than 5,000 people were moved away from its call centres at a critical time. The cost to the economy of leaving millions of callers hanging on the line – which is officially priced at £17 an hour – was £97 million, up by 50 per cent in three years.