Hugh Jones, managing director of Airborne Services International, based in Rossett, has catalogued a string of problems he had to endure, resulting in what he says was a huge waste of valuable time.

He said: "It began when I received a letter from the Wrexham office of HM Revenue and Customs inviting me to submit my employer annual return via the internet. As an inducement my company was offered £75."

The letter contained a website address and the telephone number for an online services helpdesk.

"I contacted the HMRC helpdesk and was appalled at the subsequent chain of events, which resulted in hours of wasted time and effort and a great deal of frustration.

"On the first telephone call I was told that as I was already registered with the Government Gateway for Online VAT, I could very simply access the annual return section.

"Wrong. After nearly an hour of trying I had to ring the online services helpdesk again. They told me that I had to ring the e-Vat helpline as my initial registration was made with them.

"Another lengthy telephone call ensued and I was referred back to the first online services helpdesk. This I duly did, only to be told that they could not understand why the e-Vat people had referred me back to them. The call ended with no resolution to my problem."

Mr Jones said that after a few days he decided to have another go. He rang the helpline again and this time was given different advice.

"They advised me that in order to register I needed a particular reference number. I asked where I got this number from. They informed me the only place that had the information was the office in Wrexham which wrote the original letter. The only problem is that the HMRC office in Wrexham does not put its telephone number on its letterhead. I was then given an 01978 number from the helpline and this resulted in yet another saga.

"I rang the number and it was engaged, I rang it again 30 times that day and it was always engaged. The next day I rang and again it was engaged. In fact I rang it a total of 100 times and it was always engaged."

Mr Jones said he went back to the original helpline and they tried the number several times, but it was constantly engaged. I asked them what I could do now. The answer was to keep trying the number, as there was nothing they could do to help. So much for an online helpdesk.

"It is outrageous that this degree of incompetence exists in a key department. It is even more disgraceful in the current climate when all business needs help and support.

"Business people should not be spending days trying to contact government departments who fail to provide adequate information."

In response to the issues raised by Mr Jones a spokesman for HM Revenue and Customs said: "We do not comment on individual cases but are sorry if this customer was not satisfied with the service he received. We will contact him personally about this."