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Original poster

HMRC mistakenly believe I live abroad

103 replies

cherrypiesally · 02/10/2025 20:58

HMRC have sent me a letter telling me they are stopping my child benefit as they believe I moved abroad 18months ago and didn’t return to the UK. I did go away on the date in question and did return and have since been abroad 4 times, (on a renewed passport though). For some reason border control have not recorded it.

Has anyone else had this problem and how did they solve it.
I don’t have the return plane ticket as I was a staff member on a school trip and it was booked through a school trip company so don’t have any emails or credit card receipts of booking the flight. Also I probably just threw the ticket away. Short of getting 50 teens to write me a note to say I was on the flight I’m not sure what to do.

OP posts:
Thread gallery
6
Freezingflowers · 22/10/2025 14:26

I had this exact letter. We went on holiday abroad in 2023 and they've now decided we're still abroad 🙄
I rang HMRC and told them to check my national insurance records to prove I'm working in the UK. They said they can't do that.
Yes you read that correctly, The HMRC are unable to check my National insurance records. Absolutely unbelievable.

Maersk · 22/10/2025 14:29

HMRC are using flawed data sets to hit a spurious performance metric. At a minimum due diligence would involve cross checking with income tax receipts. This would be easy.

They know they are doing this but are ignoring the stress and harm they are causing to citizens who have legitimate claims.

I would encorage everyone to write and complain to their MPs

Navigatinglife100 · 22/10/2025 14:37

Hilarious they are writing to your UK address to say you arent there!!

Be much better for HMRC to have approached it from the assumption of innocence but please provide details of that trip and some evidence of your life in UK since that date so your file can be updated.

It must be obvious that a bell curve of leavers, growing from May and at their highest at Easter, August and October, is very likely to be a waste of resources so alloe the cases to be sorted as quickly as possible.

LukeButterly · 27/10/2025 09:44

cherrypiesally · 02/10/2025 20:58

HMRC have sent me a letter telling me they are stopping my child benefit as they believe I moved abroad 18months ago and didn’t return to the UK. I did go away on the date in question and did return and have since been abroad 4 times, (on a renewed passport though). For some reason border control have not recorded it.

Has anyone else had this problem and how did they solve it.
I don’t have the return plane ticket as I was a staff member on a school trip and it was booked through a school trip company so don’t have any emails or credit card receipts of booking the flight. Also I probably just threw the ticket away. Short of getting 50 teens to write me a note to say I was on the flight I’m not sure what to do.

Hello everyone, I'm a journalist writing an article about this issue and am keen to have a chat with anyone, even anonymously, who may have received a letter. Especially those of you in England, Scotland or Wales.

I've written about how this issue is affecting parents in Northern Ireland. Feel free to drop me a line here or on [email protected] Thanks!

'NI parents caught in UK crackdown lose child benefit after travelling via Dublin' https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/oct/26/ni-parents-caught-in-uk-crackdown-lose-child-benefit-after-travelling-via-dublin

Home

https://mailto:[email protected]/

betsybeeee · 27/10/2025 19:34

I'm glad I came across this thread. I've just received a similar letter from HMRC from a short holiday I took 18 months ago. The mountain of paperwork I need to prove I didn't emigrate is insane. It's like being punished for having a holiday.

EllaSaturday · 28/10/2025 16:36

That info is about changing your circumstances (like actually going to live abroad) when you are on UC.
That is not applicable to any of the people on this thread. None of us gave changed our circumstances. We went on trips abroad and somehow the Child Benefit office has no record of us returning, even though we all did. This is either a flaw in the data that HMRC has used, or our Border Security gas more holes than a Swiss cheese and has no accurate record of who enters the country.
Either way, we have all been failed by their systems and accused of a fraud none of us committed.

TheAutumnCrow · 28/10/2025 17:01

This is big news finally getting the coverage it needs today.

www.theguardian.com/society/2025/oct/28/hmrc-cuts-child-benefit-for-35000-families-based-on-incomplete-travel-data

betsybeeee · 28/10/2025 19:03

I've just phoned them. If this happens to you it's worth phoning them because the documentation that is listed in the letter and the documentation they will accept are not the same. For example, she told me they will accept printed bank statements (the letter says they need to be originals) and also you only need a letter from your child's school or doctor, not both. It's still really outrageous. I can't help wondering if this isn't a way for the government to convince us that we need a "digital passport". Like we're going to get more and more Kafkaesque requests until we start pleading for digital passports.

B333juice · 28/10/2025 22:10

Wrong thread sorry

eurochick · 28/10/2025 22:47

I get the feeling that this isn’t going to save the touted £350m…

Whilst I am sure this is awful for the families wrongly accused I am most concerned (but not surprised) by what seems to be chronically inaccurate border data.

betsybeeee · 29/10/2025 09:26

Thanks to whoever posted the guardian article, and to the journalist who investigated it. I phoned the HMRC again this morning, gave them the name of my employer and they've told me I no longer need to send in all the evidence.

notimagain · 29/10/2025 10:00

TheAutumnCrow · 29/10/2025 09:07

Shambles it is...

Looking at instances in that Guardian article such as the lady logged out of the UK whose flight was actually cancelled I suspect some bright spark simply thought the answer to HMGs problem of how to establish who had left the country was simply to do not much more than than comb Advanced Passenger Info (API) data.....

No actual check done of what went on on the real world after the passenger provided that data, such as whether the passenger boarded the aircraft or if the flight even operated....

GIGO etc.

Sunflowerlanyard · 29/10/2025 19:11

Are they now trying to hush this up as they don’t won’t everyone to discover the clear flaws they have in border data?! Now regret sending them
al my personal information for nothing

AnotherDayAnotherStart · 29/10/2025 19:22

SummerFeverVenice · 02/10/2025 21:33

You should have stamps in your passport showing you coming and going,
Send copies of those pages to them

Note, to be considered habitually resident in the UK you have to be here 26 weeks out of 52 weeks (rolling). So if your trips add up to more than that, you become ineligible for benefits.

Edited
Show quote history

Why would she have stamps in her passport? Most countries a school trip would go to have visa waiver agreements or digital visas for short trips (which generally means anything that would be done as a school trip or working person could take as a holiday), so no stamps.

TheAutumnCrow · 29/10/2025 20:15

betsybeeee · 29/10/2025 09:26

Thanks to whoever posted the guardian article, and to the journalist who investigated it. I phoned the HMRC again this morning, gave them the name of my employer and they've told me I no longer need to send in all the evidence.

You’re very welcome! What an absolute farce they’ve put you, and the OP, and others through. So stressful.

As pp say, it’s also showed up the mess that is this country’s border ‘control’ data. It’s a really shocking situation.

TrousersOfTime · 29/10/2025 20:25

Is it worth everyone affected reporting HMRC to the Information Commissioner's Office - looks like there's a clear breach of data protection legislation here (not only are they using sensitive personal data for a purpose other than that which it was originally collected for, but they are also basing decision making on inaccurate data)

Ohthatsabitshit · 30/10/2025 00:49

It’s not a new thing though. This happened to my son who receives benefits as he is entirely dependent during the Covid pandemic. Just how a vulnerable disabled person was supposed to have left the country when borders were shut almost everywhere I don’t know.

TheAutumnCrow · 30/10/2025 07:55

The Guardian is still on it.

Very good point about data (mis)use, @TrousersOfTime.

www.theguardian.com/society/2025/oct/30/uk-woman-who-booked-oslo-flight-but-did-not-fly-loses-child-benefit-because-she-emigrated

NebulousDeadline · 30/10/2025 08:04

Can't remember if it was earlier Guardian article or NI Reddit I saw it, but apparently HMRC IT is held together with rubber bands and the different systems don't link up. Absolutely typical short sightedness. Need to invest in the basics.

CrinaCara · 30/10/2025 08:20

I phoned them the other day about this but was told to fill in the (nonsense) form and send in the documentation. They think I live in Germany after a brief family holiday in 2023. I even need to send a patient summary for my 16 year old which contains medical info.

Meanwhile in another part of the forest, the Home Office are happily accepting my P60s as evidence that I live and work here as part of my application for British citizenship (I'm Irish).

I think I'll phone them again.

TheNinjaWife · 30/10/2025 08:31

Something very similar happened to me 30 years ago! I had to prove I was a habitual resident. I had to attend a tribunal which was a huge hassle as I had to take unpaid leave from work to attend. It was very intimidating as I was interviewed (interrogated) alone with at least 5 people around a table.
I kept the paperwork for years as it was all a bit of a joke. The amount of money it cost to put a report together the size of a telephone directory.
It ended in me getting back paid benefits that I hadn’t even asked for. I was born in the U.K. and had an 8 DD year old at the time.

notimagain · 30/10/2025 09:08

TheAutumnCrow · 30/10/2025 07:55

Looks like from their own admission it does indeed appear HMRC etc are probably using Advanced Passenger Info (API) for supposed evidence, at least in some instances.

That said I'm not sure whether that counts as an abuse or missuse - one for the experts..

The airlines themselves never bothered with API until governments insisted on it, and if you fill in API online it usually states somewhere on the online form that the info goes to "government agencies"...

Anyhow neither API or even checking in and being in possesion of a Boarding Pass should be considered proof of travel...and if the boot is on the other foot HMRC officials will happily inform you of the latter if you ever have to try and prove you left the UK on a particular date.

CrinaCara · 30/10/2025 09:11

UPDATE: got a lovely HMRC staffer who said they are using simplified questions over the phone. They've sorted it for me.

I politely mentioned Mumsnet and the Guardian as my source of information on the simplified method so thank you all.