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7 June 2017

Latest Tax Credit Error and Fraud Statistics

HMRC have published their latest annual tax credit error and fraud statistics.

The report covers the year 2015-2016, the latest year for which statistics are available. The headline numbers show that the level of error and fraud favouring the claimant was around £1.57 billion or 5.5% of finalised Tax Credit entitlement. The value of finalised Tax Credit entitlement used for the percentage rate estimate being £28.3 billion. This is an increase on the 2014-2015 figure of 4.8% - with the increase coming wholly from claimant error (as opposed to fraud by the claimant or error by HMRC).

The statistics are drawn from a sample of 4000 cases, although only 3900 of those cases were complete at the time of sampling and in nearly a quarter of cases sampled, the claimant didn't respond to HMRC's investigation.

HMRC's tax credits annual error and fraud statistics 2015-2016 publication is part of the Personal tax credit series and is available via the GOV.UK website