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HMRC child benefit crackdown paused over travel data error
The Guardian
|October 30, 2025
The UK tax authorities have announced they will no longer cut off parents' child benefit payments after a new crackdown on overseas fraud backfired due to incomplete Home Office travel data.
The flawed data led to HMRC suspending 23,500 payments in recent weeks, including for many families who had simply gone on holiday without the Home Office recording their return.
Mistaken suspensions reported in the last 24 hours included that of a woman who travelled to Amsterdam - long before she became a mother.
She said: "I have one biological child. I received a letter from HMRC stating that I went to the Netherlands in June 2023 and never returned.
"My baby was conceived in January 2024, born in Belfast in October 2024, and has never left Belfast. I had travelled ... for one night for work and now Big Brother wants me to explain what I was doing before the baby even existed to claim child benefits."
This story is from the October 30, 2025 edition of The Guardian.
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