A pensioner was left too poor to afford her own funeral after HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) took a year to issue her income tax refund. Vivian Cordingley, who had learning difficulties and was physically disabled, was required to make tax repayment claims on income she drew from a trust that her late sister had left to her. But tax office delays and mistakes in processing her claims led to her accruing thousands of pounds in legal and accounting fees. Despite the tax office apologising and paying out compensation, it meant there was not enough money to cover her funeral costs after she died last year. It comes as HMRC grapples with a customer service crisis that saw nearly one million calls to the tax office go unanswered in January ahead of the self-assessment deadline. Callers had to wait a record 25 minutes on average before the phone was answered. In March, HMRC was forced to halt plans to push customers online by closing its phone lines for almost six months a year after Jeremy Hunt, the Chancellor, intervened. The Telegraph revealed last year that fewer tax office staff were working in the office than during lockdown, despite the House of Commons...