HM Revenue and Customs has apologised after wrongly stopping child benefit for thousands of families, flagging them as having emigrated based on incomplete travel data. The error came to light after reports of families in Northern Ireland having their benefits suspended after returning home via Dublin airport, leaving HMRC with the impression they had taken a one-way ticket out of the country.
HMRC sent letters questioning the residency of 23,489 of the 6.9 million child benefit claimants across the UK. Among those affected were a woman who went to France for five days after her husband died there; a Lithuanian man living in England for 24 years who went on a five-day holiday to Italy; a family from Hove who flew in and out of Gatwick on a trip to Australia; and a woman who flew to Bristol from Belfast for her grandmother's funeral but returned via Dublin.
Cerys, a music teacher, took her three children on a one-day trip to Amsterdam from Liverpool to familiarise two of them, who have autism, with flying. She said: 'Child benefit are now saying that there is no evidence of me returning with my family so I need to produce a ridiculous amount of evidence to prove that I have not been living in Amsterdam since February. We flew out of and back into Liverpool airport the same day.'
Simon Pilbrow in Northern Ireland took a short break with his sons via Heathrow to Vienna in 2023. He said: 'I called up [HMRC]. I'm normally a pretty chilled person, but I was absolutely raging at having to prove that I live in my own country. Bit of a Kafkaesque bureaucratic nightmare.'
HMRC apologised and said it expected 'the majority had been suspended correctly', but added it was 'urgently reviewing the current process and actively considering options.' Affected families have been asked to provide extensive documentation, including bank statements, school letters, and GP records, to prove they have not left the UK permanently.
