HMRC blasted by MPs as failures see scammers steal £47m | Politics | News | EUROtoday

MPs have warned HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) that its failure to report particulars of a breach affecting round 100,000 taxpayers is “unacceptable”. The Treasury Committee mentioned it was solely alerted to the data when a notification was revealed on the HMRC web site on the identical day as a dwell session.

On June 4, it emerged that HMRC had misplaced £47 million after a phishing rip-off breached tens of 1000’s of tax accounts.

Senior civil servants at HMRC instructed the Treasury Committee that 100,000 individuals have been contacted, or are within the technique of being contacted, after their accounts had been locked down in what they mentioned was an “organised crime” incident which began final yr.

On Tuesday, the committee revealed a letter from the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) stipulating that it had not mentioned the phishing incident with HMRC and was not conscious of it previous to the listening to on June 4.

The committee additionally revealed a letter despatched by way of electronic mail from its chairwoman Dame Meg Hillier to John-Paul Marks, chief government, HMRC.

The letter mentioned: “I am alarmed that it was never deemed necessary to inform Parliament about an issue which affected such a vast number of taxpayers and led to the loss of £47 million of public money.

“To discover this information during a session from press reports and without adequate time for the committee to review the information in detail is unacceptable.”

The letter mentioned the committee is looking for responses from HMRC as to “why was Parliament not notified earlier about the loss of £47 million of taxpayers’ money, whether through a written ministerial statement and/or public or confidential letters to the Treasury Committee and the Public Accounts Committee?”

The committee can be looking for responses over why the replace was revealed on the day of the committee listening to on the work of HMRC and who else in Government was instructed concerning the incident and when.

It additionally needs to obtain a timeline of how the incident unfolded and discover out what measures HMRC has put in place to make sure that such incidents don’t occur in future.

The letter requested for a reply by June 24 2025.

Meanwhile, the letter from Glenn Collins, head of technical and strategic engagement, ACCA, to Dame Meg, dated June 5, mentioned: “While we regularly engage with HMRC, including earlier in the year about issues relating to agent account access, we have not received any communication from HMRC on the issue of taxpayer account breaches until yesterday.

“We have highlighted to HMRC our frustration that HMRC has not been transparent or timely in its communication over this important issue.”