Criminals steal 47 million pounds from HMRC after reaching 100,000 taxpayers accounts

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Organized criminals stole 47 million pounds from HM Reseenue & Customs in a hunting attack last year targeting online accounts of about 100,000 taxpayers in the United Kingdom, and the agency also revealed on Wednesday.

A Notice He posted on the website of the Tax Authority on the Internet that the attack was “an attempt to demand funds from HMRC” and included “unauthorized access to the accounts of some customers via the Internet.”

Angela McDonald, Deputy CEO of HMRC, said that criminals had sought to “deny” taxpayers and extracted 47 million pounds from the public portfolio.

This disclosure came at a time when McDonald and John Paul Marx, the new CEO of HMRC, presented evidence of the Mukhtar Ministry of Treasury Committee in the House of Commons on the agency’s work and customer service performance, which was shot recently.

Representatives HMRC criticized the lack of disclosure of the attack earlier, as President Dame Meg Hillier said that the committee “expects to obtain information on this issue – does not appear for it because of an advertisement while you are in the committee’s room.”

HMRC said it was “affected accounts” and “removal of any incorrect information from tax records.”

Marx, who was in the Post since April, said that the accident occurred in December and affected the accounts of about 100,000 taxpayers in payment.

He said that the affected taxpayers do not need to take any action and that the situation was under control.

“This affected 0.2 percent of Paye’s population, about 100,000 people, who we wrote to and write to it,” said Marx, stressing that there was no “financial loss for these individuals.”

“This crime is organized for the identity data from HMRC systems,” he said, adding that criminals have sought to use HMRC identity data to create Paye accounts to pay themselves in payment or to reach an existing account.

Marx added that the HMRC fraud service discovered the attack and a criminal investigation was launched, with some arrests last year.

McDonald, who started its role in August 2020, acknowledged that 47 million pounds was “a lot of money, which is very unacceptable.” She added that HMRC was “in general, in the last tax year, already protected a value of 1.9 billion pounds of money that we sought to take us in attacks.”

McDonald said that cleaning the accounts and ensuring that HMRC was “speaking to the real customer and not speaking to the criminal” was “a challenge” and took “some time”, stressing that no breach occurred online.

Separately, many HMRC lines fell on Wednesday due to the system’s interruption. The officials said that the power outage was not linked to the hunting attack.

Last year, the National Office for Auditing, which is to monitor public spending, said on HMRC Customer service was “in a hanging spiral”. She warned that the pressures of financing and discounts in jobs and paying costs-by encouraging taxpayers to manage their online affairs-have led to worse performance in calling calls.

Speaking to MPS, Marks set four major priorities for his leadership: closing the tax gap to bring 7.5 billion pounds a year, improve customer service, and update HMRC systems, including “improving our Internet elasticity”, and enhancing confidence and participation.

He added: “In the end, we want to be the modern reliable tax authority. We know that confidence is essential to good compliance, the desire to pay and trust in the way we work.”