HMRC apology after tax credits letters error

28 May 2010

A printing error has been blamed by HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) after confidential details about thousands of tax credit claimants were sent to other people by mistake.

HMRC officials issued an apology after information on earnings and bank accounts were included accidentally in letters sent to people informing them of their annual award. A spokesman stressed there was no risk of identity theft arising from the error.

According to the BBC, a woman from Hyde in Greater Manchester was informed of her neighbour's earnings in the letter she received. The bank sort code and last four digits of another claimant's bank account was also included.

The HMRC spokesman said: "Unfortunately an error has occurred in one of the tax credits print runs causing some customer information to be wrongly formatted.

"Investigations are under way to identify the cause of the problem and we will be contacting affected customers in writing this week, apologising and providing a corrected award notice."