The taxman is to close 281 tax enquiry centres next year, placing 1,300 jobs at risk, to the fury of a union.
HM Revenue & Customs said it was not anticipating compulsory redundancies as a result of the announcement but refused to say how many might lose their jobs.
The sites, which are drop-in centres for individuals to ask for help rather than tax offices, will be gradually replaced from June with a new phone service.
The centres will close down in 2014.
HMRC calculated that the changes would result in savings of £13m annually.
In a statement to outline what the reforms, HMRC Chief Executive Lin Homer said: ""We will give a more specialised phone service for customers whose affairs can be resolved over the telephone, and face-to-face help to those who need it, visiting them at a place convenient to them, saving them both travel and time."
HMRC said its 281 enquiry centres had seen customer demand drop by 50% since 2006.
That was despite the National Audit Office reporting in December last year that 20 million calls to HMRC enquiry lines went unanswered in 2011/2012.
The PCS union pledged to fight the move and called on the public to write to their MPs, claiming such a decision would have a particularly heavy impact on pensioners and other vulnerable people.
It also suggested that market researchers calling on behalf of HMRC had said that talking to somebody in person was not a valid option when asking whether taxpayers would prefer to deal with the department "by phone, post or online".
PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka said: "Closing all face to face tax offices would break the link between people in communities and an essential public service they rely on.
"If, as we fear, flawed research has been used to justify these closure plans then ministers must put an immediate stop to them."
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