Tips On Avoiding Self Assessment Tax Scams

HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) is warning millions of Self Assessment taxpayers to be aware of fraudsters in the run up to the 31 January deadline.

Last year, there were almost 900,000 reports from taxpayers about suspicious HMRC contact, in the form of phone calls, texts or emails. Of these, more than 100,000 were phone scams and over 620,000 reports related to bogus tax rebates.

According to HMRC, the most common techniques fraudsters use include phoning taxpayers offering a fake tax refund, or pretending to be HMRC by texting or emailing a link to a false page, where their bank details and money can be stolen. Fraudsters are also known to threaten victims with arrest or imprisonment if a bogs tax bill is not paid immediately.

HMRC’s Customer Protection team work on identifying and closing down these scams but taxpayers should recognise the signs to help avoid becoming victims. HMRC does not contact taxpayers asking for their PIN, password or bank details. Taxpayers are warned that they should never give out private information, reply to text messages, download attachments or click on links in texts or emails which they are not expecting.

For more information or advice regarding your Self Assessment tax return, please email our EQ Taxperts or call your local office contact.