The Unverified Numbers Database has the following entry:

Company Name: HM Revenue & Customs (Inland Revenue)
08xx Number:    0845 302 1455
01/02/03 No:     0161 210 3087

Although the 0161 number works, HMRC know that you direct dialed, and may refuse to help you.

When I used it, the man at the HMRC said that the 0161 number was only for use from outside the UK, and that I should have used the 0845 number.

Just a heads up!

phantomsteve wrote on Apr 28^th, 2010 at 1:31pm:

Although the 0161 number works, HMRC know that you direct dialed, and may refuse to help you. When I used it, the man at the HMRC said that the 0161 number was only for use from outside the UK, and that I should have used the 0845 number.

What happens if you try calling after first adding 141 to withold your Caller ID from being presented to HMRC?

You might perhaps care to write to some of the members of HMRC's Board, such as their Chief Executive Lesley Strathie, referring them to the the fact that by using 0845 numbers they are charging 20 times as much per minute for anyone who needs to call them from a BT Payphone (20p per minute instead of 1p per minute) as an 01,02 or 03 number and that calls to them on 0845 are excluded from fixed price bundled minutes packages on landlines and mobile phones. You can find details of the Board members at www.hmrc.gov.uk/governance/board.htm and their email addresses are all in the form of firstname.lastname@hmrc.gsi.gov.uk

You might also want to refer these Board members to paragraphs 7.26 to 7.31 of Sir David Varney's report on transforming government services at www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/d/pbr06_varney_review.pdf and paragraphs 3.51 to 3.67 of the Central Office of Information's Contact Better Practice Guide For Government Contact Centres at www.coi.gov.uk/documents/gcc-third-edition.pdf  Both these guides indicate that the cost of accessing government services on the telephone (especially for the country's least well off citizens) should be a major consideration for government departments and agencies in their choice of phone number.

You may find that this recent thread discussing "International Numbers" provided by HMRC in response to an FOI request for geographic alternatives is also of interest.  You will note that the number you called and on which you encountered difficulty was one of the numbers provided in this FOI response by HMRC.

See www.saynoto0870.com/cgi-bin/forum/YaBB.cgi?num=1264259231/8

Finally this earlier thread about HMRC's phone numbers may also be of interest.

See www.saynoto0870.com/cgi-bin/forum/YaBB.cgi?num=1226330100