Scam alert. It is the time of year that the HMRC sends out emails to remind directors of businesses to fill out their self-assessment tax returns. It is also the time of year that scammers try to get in on the act, with fake messages attempting to steal your personal details and money, warns industry commentator Jan Mikula.
We’ve been here before – many, many times. So many that I’ve lost count; but since there might be new readers, or more to the point, readers who are new to business or dealing with HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC), it is worth repeating. The scammers are out to get you. And no, I don’t mean HMRC; I’m referring to the people who claim to be HMRC but are not, and want your money.
If you are self-employed running your own business, or a director of a business, then almost certainly you will have to complete a self-assessment tax return at some point. Even if you are a straightforward employee of a business, and hence most of your income is taxed at source under PAYE, but you have other sources of income, the same is likely to apply.
The last submission deadline for these is January 31 each year. However, you will receive genuine emails from HMRC (the real ones) from mid-summer onwards, reminding you to complete the forms and submit them – preferably by September 30. Basically, HMRC want to spread their workload out, because so many people wait until January before submitting the things.
These reminders can be quite frequent, and rather irritating – but they are genuine. Unfortunately, the scammers are well-aware of what HMRC send at this time of year, and so they send their own emails: the ones that can lead to very substantial losses, and which are the ones you need to ignore.
How do you tell them apart? It used to be that most of these fake emails were so badly written that it was easy to spot them straight away: spelling mistakes, awful grammar, even the phrases used in them which were often borrowed from US tax usage and completely at odds with what is used here. But the scammers have improved a bit since those days, and no doubt with the help of AI will make their fakes look even better as time goes on.
The good news is that there are some very simple and fool-proof rules to follow when you see what purports to be an email, or text message, from HMRC:
- Genuine HMRC messages do NOT contain links to ANY website – not even their own. They will simply advise you to go manually to your HMRC online account. Nothing to ‘click’, nothing to follow.
- Genuine HMRC messages do NOT ask you for any payment, or any personal or financial information whatsoever. Not bank account details, not passwords, nothing. Zero, zilch.
- Genuine HMRC messages do NOT threaten you with legal action of any sort.
- Genuine HMRC messages do NOT offer you any refunds or applications to claim a refund.
In very simple terms, if the real HMRC wants to tell you something specific about your personal tax affairs, they will only send you a message to go and log into your existing HMRC online account. Any email or message that asks you to complete a form online or follow a link anywhere else on the web in regards to your tax or financial affairs is a scam.
Most of us who receive these scam-spam messages simply delete them as soon as we read them; HMRC say that you can actually report them:
- By forwarding emails to phishing@hmrc.gov.uk
- By reporting scam phone calls via GOV.UK
- By forwarding suspicious texts to 60599
Of course, if you are self-employed or a company director, there’s a good chance that you will be using an accountant to deal with your tax affairs; so if you see something which despite the ‘rules’ above you still think might be genuine, ask your accountant. But I don’t imagine that he or she will thank you for forwarding any messages to them, unless they specifically ask you to do that. If they want to check anything related to your tax affairs they will do it the proper way.
It’s actually very easy to avoid these scams, and yet hundreds of people – even some who are by no means newbies to dealing with HMRC – still fall for them every year. Even some professionals.
Stay safe!
- Jan Mikula represents nationwide franchise accounting company EKW Group – ekwgroup.co.uk
