Revenue places email service 'on ice'
The Inland Revenue has suspended its plans to allow taxpayers to communicate with the department by email, despite spending £200m on installing 55,000 computers.
It is understood the Revenue fears hackers may break security codes of its proposed Microsoft’s Office-based national email service.
The latest in a line of IT embarrassments for the Revenue, comes as its online self-assessment website remains suspended due to security breaches.
The Inland Revenue told staff in an internal publication that one of its concerns is that hackers could intercept emails or pretend to be Nick Montagu, the department’s chairman, for the purposes of reading and sending emails.
A spokeswoman for the Revenue, said: ‘The trial has finished as planned, but will continue later this year. It is on ice rather than finished. We will decide what to do before continuing.’