HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has apologised after wrongly stopping child benefit payments for thousands of families, including those with autistic children, due to flawed travel data. The error came to light after reports of families in Northern Ireland losing benefits when they returned from holiday via Dublin airport, which HMRC misinterpreted as a one-way exit from the UK.
HMRC sent letters questioning the residency of 23,489 out of 6.9 million child benefit claimants, suspending payments while investigations were carried out. Affected cases include a woman who went to France for five days after her husband's death, a Lithuanian man living in England for 24 years who took a five-day holiday to Italy, and a family from Hove who flew to Australia via Gatwick. A mother who flew from Belfast to Bristol for a funeral but returned via Dublin was also affected.
Cerys, a music teacher from Liverpool, took her three children on a one-day trip to Amsterdam to help her autistic sons become familiar with flying. She left at 6am and returned the same night, but HMRC claimed there was no evidence of her return. She now faces demands for original bank statements, school letters, and GP records to prove she is not a fraudster. 'This is the one time in years we have gone abroad. My son is eight and this was his first time abroad, but we lost child benefit because of it,' she said.
Simon Pilbrow from Northern Ireland took a short break to Vienna via Heathrow in 2023 and received a letter stopping his benefits. He said: 'I called up HMRC. I was absolutely raging at having to prove that I live in my own country. Bit of a Kafkaesque bureaucratic nightmare.' Mark Blackmore, a theatre technician whose benefit was stopped after a holiday to Spain three years ago, sent HMRC an invoice for wasting his time after spending three hours compiling evidence.
HMRC admitted it had sent letters to less than 0.5% of claimants and expected 'the majority had been suspended correctly.' It said it was 'urgently reviewing the current process and actively considering options.' However, affected families remain furious, with many fearing the suspensions could lead to permanent cuts.
