Criminals broke into tax returns attempting to steal £100m, HMRC admits

HMRC said it is aware of cases where criminals harvested log-in details from shared computers used by taxpayers to complete their online returns to alter the returns and divert refunds to their bank accounts. Last year alone the tax office checked 3.4 million returns and identified 17,000 attempts to claim almost £100m in bogus tax repayments, the Daily Mail reported. The admission came after Sunday Times journalist Jackie Annesley had her tax return hijacked by criminals who used it to steal more than £1,800 from HMRC. A spokesperson for HMRC told the Daily Mail their computer sys...