HMRC lost £47m after taxpayers' accounts hit by phishing scam

HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has lost £47m after a phishing scam breached tens of thousands of tax accounts, a group of MPs has heard.

- PA Media

Two senior civil servants at the tax authority told the Treasury committee 100,000 people had been contacted, or were 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 affected will suffer "no financial loss", said John-Paul Marks, the HMRC chief executive. He told the committee: "It's about 0.2% of the PAYE [pay as you earn] population, around 100,000 people, who we have written to, are writing to, to notify them that we detected activity on their PAYE account."