HMRC loses £47m after attack on 100,000 accounts

HMRC has lost £47m after a phishing scam breached tens of thousands of tax accounts, a group of MPs has heard.

- DAVID LYNCH

Two senior civil servants at HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) told the treasury committee yesterday that 100,000 people have been contacted, or are in the process of being contacted, after their accounts were locked down in what they said was an "organised crime" incident which began last year.

Taxpayers who are being affected will suffer "no financial loss", according to John-Paul Marks, the chief executive of HMRC, the UK's tax authority.

Mr Marks told the committee: "It's about 0.2 per cent of the PAYE population, around 100,000 people, who we have written to, are writing to, to notify them that we detected activity on their PAYE account." Asked if this applied to individual working people's PAYE accounts, not companies, he replied: "That's right, individuals.

To be clear, no financial loss to those individuals.