HMRC admits errors as thousands wrongly had benefit payments stopped | Politics | News
Thousands of people had their child benefits wrongly withdrawn due to a significant administrative error, a government investigation has found. HMRC has announced the findings of an investigation into nearly 24,000 cases following a dispute over inaccuracies in its anti-fraud initiative.
In November, the tax office announced it was carrying out the review in response to concerns about a new scheme aimed at preventing incorrect child benefit payments. This campaign resulted in child benefits being stopped for around 23,500 applicants because official checks showed they were no longer eligible due to having left the UK permanently.
But these checks were inaccurate.
Authorities came under criticism after it was revealed that PAYE checks, which would have provided real-time data on individuals’ employment and income, were not carried out in these cases. Instead, they relied on Home Office information, which, as it turned out, often did not provide a comprehensive picture.
Indeed, most of those reported to have left the UK had only had a short holiday. HMRC officials have completed a review of these cases to determine how many people had their child benefits unfairly stopped and how many were not actually eligible. Mirror.
HMRC is being examined in the House of Commons
The details came to light after Conservative MP Andrew Snowden asked a parliamentary question “out of 23,500 compliance investigations, how many have (i) been confirmed as eligible, (ii) been wrongly found to have received assistance, and (iii) have yet to yield any results?”
Treasury secretary Dan Tomlinson responded: “HMRC has completed its review of Child Benefit compliance cases where a PAYE check was not carried out. As of 30 November 2025, 14,994 Child Benefit customers were confirmed to be eligible for Child Benefit, out of 23,794 cases opened between August and October 2025.”
He continued: “Of the remaining 8,800 cases, 1,019 were identified as having received Child Benefit in error, and 7,781 investigations remained open because the client had not yet provided evidence that would enable a definitive determination of place of residence.”
HMRC had initially included PAYE data during the pilot phase of the programme. However, HMRC chief executive John-Paul Marks explained that PAYE checks were abolished to “streamline the process” when the scheme was rolled out more widely.
Mr. Tomlinson responded to the errors, explaining that they occurred after the first pilot. It said: “Data from 23,794 cases is not comparable to the pilot. Recognizing the issues with implementing the expansion, HMRC introduced an expedited process for customers that differed from the way it applied checks in the pilot. Information from the pilot remains HMRC’s best assessment of the effectiveness of the activity, which uses international travel data to reduce error and fraud.”
Senior MPs criticize HMRC over mistakes
Treasury Committee chair Dame Meg Hillier accused officials of being ‘cavalier’ about the public’s finances after the error was revealed last month. He commented: “HMRC is absolutely right to look at innovative ways to tackle fraud and errors in our system.
“But I fear they are being reckless with people’s finances, making arbitrary decisions to remove necessary controls and causing a mess that they now have to clean up.
“I understand that they need to try to eliminate unnecessary bureaucracy from their processes, but this is a costly mistake. It is true that they have apologized. We will certainly press them on the lessons they have learned from this mistake when they appear before our Committee in the new year.”
After these errors were revealed, but before the affected figures were revealed in the House of Commons ahead of the New Year, HMRC issued an apology. A government spokesman said at the time: “We are deeply sorry to those whose payments were wrongfully suspended.
“We took immediate action to update the process and gave customers one month to respond before payments were suspended. We are committed to protecting taxpayers’ money and are confident that most of the suspensions are correct.”
In September the Government introduced tougher measures against child benefit fraud and promised to save £350 million over a five-year period.
