HMRC cuts child benefit for 35,000 families based on incomplete travel data

UK tax agency apologises after flagging people as having emigrated, often when they return via different routes

Parents who went from Liverpool to Amsterdam with their autistic children are among thousands who have had their child benefit wrongly stopped as part of a crackdown on benefit fraud, it has emerged.

The error by HM Revenue and Customs emerged 48 hours after the Guardian and the Detail reported on hundreds of families in Northern Ireland who had child benefit stopped after they returned home from holiday via Dublin airport, leaving HMRC with the impression they had taken a one-way ticket out of the country and were fraudulently collecting child benefit.