HMRC HOTLINE FAILS TO ANSWER 4 MILLION CALLS

£47bn of taxes unpaid

- By Jonathan Walker

TAX officials failing to collect billions of pounds for the Treasury have admitted they ignore millions of phone calls from businesses trying to pay what they owe.

A staggering £46.8billion every year is not being raked in by HMRC - enough to plug a black hole in the public finances and allow Rachel Reeves to balance the books without requiring further tax hikes.

If this money had been collected, the Chancellor would not have needed to target elderly and vulnerable people with winter fuel payment cuts or plan to bring in the equally unpopular inheritance tax hikes for farmers to fund Labour policies.

It has emerged up to four million calls to a hotline for people attempting to pay their tax bill are not picked up.

Many come from owners of small businesses, who struggle with complex tax rules because they don't have the accounts departments employed by larger firms.

These small and medium enterprises account for £28billion of the £46.8billion in unpaid tax revenue.