HMRC have screwed up again big time by sending 50,000 taxpayers personal and obviously confidential information to other taxpayers – but once again teflon HMRC aren’t to blame – perish the thought, it’s the fault of a print supplier.

People who have been affected have received a letter signed by Paul Gerrard, director of tax credits, saying “I wish to apologise for this error and any inconvenience that it might cause. I would be very grateful if you could return the incorrect notice in the envelope provided.”

HMRC said they were alerted to the problem last weekend.

“HMRC takes data security extremely seriously,” they said in a statement.

“Unfortunately an error has occurred in one of the tax credits print runs causing some customer information to be wrongly formatted.

“Investigations are underway 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.”

Interestingly, they have stated that ID theft could not result from the error (well that’s a relief) or is that altogether true. One taxpayer received details of someone elses work, childcare and pay details
This employment tax expert says it is happening too often and HMRC refuse to accept the blame, taxpayers personal details should remain confidential otherwise how can we trust these people!