Shabana Mahmood MP, Labour’s Shadow Exchequer Secretary, responding to the news that HMRC may have wrongly calculated up to five million people’s tax bills last year, said:

“Under the Tories there’s increasing chaos at HMRC.

“Uncertainty for taxpayers and unexpected demands for additional tax are always a source of worry especially when many are facing difficult times for their personal finances.

“The Real Time Information project was supposed to avoid issues like this. Ministers need to get a grip - not least as these errors will only increase in scale when the same RTI system is used to roll out the Government’s increasingly beleaguered flagship Universal Credit scheme.”