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HMRC has also left thousands of letters unanswered for more than a year. It was forced to create a special taskforce to deal with the backlog, consisting of more than 37,000 pieces of correspondence which are at least 10 months old, this newspaper revealed last month.
Harriett Baldwin, chair of the Treasury Committee, said the rise in home working at HMRC must be managed with “the needs of taxpayers front and centre”, adding she planned to question the tax office on the side-effects of home working for taxpayers.
She said: “It is essential now that any shift in how services are carried out is not allowed to take place without proper scrutiny.”
The tax office implemented its flexible working policy in the summer of 2021, allowing staff to work from home for at least two days a week.
Chris Etherington, of accountants RSM, said the declining quality of customer service at HMRC suggested its flexible working policy was failing to deliver, although HMRC has repeatedly rejected this claim.
He said: “Flexible working may be good for staff but it is not working for taxpayers.
“Before the pandemic HMRC was not adapted to a digital way of working, and while they are investing to fix that, it is clear they have not succeeded yet.”
While HMRC has multiple offices across the country, the proportion of staff working from its headquarters in Westminster is also in decline. Around 39pc of its staff worked in this office in the week commencing July 31, compared with 46pc three weeks prior, according to official data.
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