HMRC gives trans people access to VIP hotline

[HannahinHampshire]

‘HMRC gives trans people to VIP hotline’. Why do the records of transgender people require greater protection? I spent an hour waiting for HMRC to answer my call the other day and then I was cut off before I could speak to an advisor.

www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/cfbb2461a6f96ebf

You're just being obtuse now. It's been explained a million times it's not their sex which is secret, it's the fact that they've legally changed it, which they are entitled to privacy about and that privacy can be necessary to protect from discrimination and harassment.

Your car number plate is not a protected characteristic, nor is it special category data.

Oh, no, I for one don't think anyone should get special treatment. They should all just in a queue to speak to HMRC like the rest of us!

We’re clearly not going to come to a meeting of minds here

I don’t understand why the fact that someone has legally changed their sex requires special measures to keep it a secret. Mostly because I’m afraid whatever you may think, everyone who meets them will be well aware of their actual sex

your question about why there is a special helpline for politicians is a good one though

If this is the same as the celebrity and employee processing centre, it's for privacy (DH used to work for HMRC). Other employees are forbidden from looking up people's records but if these taxpayers were in the regular databases a friend/family/nosy person/colleague could chance upon the records.

I would prefer that my DH ex colleagues not know how much he earns when they are just correctly doing their jobs but find his records, and I'm sure well known people would also prefer this. However unless Jane Smith that used to be John is very high profile I think it's unlikely that Mary Brown who lives on the same street and works for HMRC will think "oh THAT'S what he's called now" when she's checking to see who's filled in their SA correctly and comes across one Jane Smith.

I have no idea if they have a special-special unit for the employees of the special unit to have their records processed.

It’s likely more about staff training. It’s not like tax records for other individuals are completely public. But there are privacy implications, for instance if you disclose someone’s trans status to their employer (a storyline on Coronation Street in the 1990s). The employer might genuinely not know about the employees trans status despite you saying it’s always obvious.

As for car number plates, obviously if someone knows you and what car you drive, they know your number plate (if they look). Number plates are meant to be public, that’s the point of them.

How do you know they get special treatment and have their call answered faster than others? You don’t know that at all.

Interestingly, post FWS, the govt has ruled that employers must use employees biological sex for reporting gender pay gaps - even if they have a GRC they must not use the acquired gender recorded on the GRC.

So it follows from that, employers must collect biological sex data.

Well how would they know, unless the employee discloses it?

its a disgrace that a man who now says he’s a woman can claim the state pension as if he is a woman. I’m glad the age is now equalised and I assume once a certain date passes these men won’t be able to claim, at tax payer expense, earlier. Women’s pension age was lower for a good reason.

Other than the SP surely tax affairs are the same for men and women in which case a special line is indeed indulging the fetish. Worth the £6 to get the extra pension money isn’t it!

They don't.

I have the "VIP" phone number too, it's usually slower. Especially as nothing can be done online and every issue requires a phone call.

Well, I would say getting a dedicated line to call HMRC is special treatment, but I guess it's however you view that. And yes, I just assumed it would be faster because, as we are so often told, it's a tiny minority of a tiny minority who hold a GRC, so I assumed the phone queue to speak to someone would be shorter! I know my trans identified family member doesn't have a GRC, so I'll see what she has to say about some getting special treatment and others not.

edited for spelling

The dedicated line is not just for trans people it's for everyone assigned to PD1

There are fewer staff working on that line because there are fewer people calling it. And often, they need to call you back because there's no-one authorised to handle your case.

DH has just explained they are in an extra secure unit and have extra special clearance.
As PP have said, it's almost certainly not quicker to get through.
It's also not perfect - I got a letter telling me they knew I was the higher earner so I should pay back child benefit. Since DH was overseen by the secure unit, the person who wrote the letter shouldn't have been able to see his records and my records at the same time.
However as it turns out, they had just made stuff up because that year DH was the higher earner. As he told them when he rang and tore a strip off them.

(And now I need to know who on this thread works for HMRC, who is a celebrity, and who's in witness protection...)

Can’t we all just say we might be trans & call that hotline?

Article says since 2005. 2 decades not "several" and definitely not 1000 years 😂

The article is quite clear that it only applies to GRC holders and refers to this fact several times. Did you actually read it?

Are men seriously allowed to change gender and get their pension early? Is this for real?

Surely the whole point of keeping it a secret would be that they aren’t allowed to collect their pension as the gender they are living with?

Ooh I need to phone them tomorrow…. May try it 😭😭😭😭

Neither is sex despite the new guidance from EHRC trying to say it should be.

It's amazing people will twist themselves in knots ignoring the laws and the facts

🤣🤣🤣 irony!

This thread and the article that inspired it just provides yet another reason why it was always a damn stupid idea to allow people to legally change their sex.
And there were already plenty of reasons.

DeepWinterSleep, you've done a great job of patiently trying to explain this, but I fear there are none so blind as those blinded by outrage.

I spend half my professional life dealing with HMRC. I can echo lots of posters and assure others that access to the PD1 line isn't the VIP fast-track perk you might think.

As to why trans people with GRCs have access to this, it is not to do with "special secrets" but everything to do with boring old data protection; legislation that is outwith HMRC's remit. It not only includes MPs and Royals and trans people (although they are the most headline-grabbing) but also encompasses tens of thousands of civil servants including HMRC's own staff, members of the armed forces, those with particularly complex tax affairs, those who are in witness or victim protection schemes and so on. It's not a particularly exclusive club.

For those who are genuinely interested in how trans people with GRCs were granted access to this, you should look up the Goodwin v UK and I v UK cases. They ran concurrently and judgement was passed down on the same day in 2002. In essence, Goodwin's NINO allowed their employer to discover they had changed sex and outed them. Letters were also sent to employers with their "old" sex referred to.

These rulings were key factors in the passing of the GRA in 2004.

Sex isn't what's being treated as special category data here, or else everyone would be using the PDI line since everyone has their sex recorded by HMRC.