HMRC anti-fraud scheme that wrongly cut child benefits to resume

Tax authority incorrectly used Home Office travel records to deduce that parents who went on holiday were fraudsters

A controversial government anti-fraud scheme that incorrectly stripped thousands of parents of their child benefit is to resume, despite ongoing concerns about inaccurate Home Office travel data on which the crackdown is based.

HMRC used flawed Home Office travel records to deduce that thousands of parents who went on holiday or work trips abroad were fraudsters, with 23,800 families having child benefit payments stopped late last year.