HMRC is known to send ‘nudge letters’ to taxpayers who may have undeclared taxable income – from online trading or sales suppression, for example – encouraging recipients to contact the tax agency and provide more information about their earnings.
Unfortunately, scammers are aware of this, and just as there are many email phishing scams, criminals are also sending fake HMRC letters in an attempt to steal sensitive information for fraudulent purposes.
As businesses have become more wary of digital scams, criminals are trying the ‘old school’ method of posting letters with details that make them appear to genuinely be from HMRC.
Would you be able to recognise a fake HMRC letter if you received one?
To avoid falling for this scam, here’s what you should look out for.
What does a fake HMRC letter look like?
These scam letters can be surprisingly convincing, as they feature a realistic HMRC letterhead and claim to be sent by the ‘Indy and Small Business Compliance’ team.
They inform the targeted company that they need to provide evidence verifying their income to ensure they aren’t avoiding tax, threatening a HMRC investigation into the company and potentially freezing their business activities if they don’t comply with the letter.
The fake HMRC letters will usually request sensitive information such as business bank statements, the latest filed accounts, VAT returns, and copies of each director’s ID documents.
If scammers get their hands on a copy of a business director’s passport or driving licence, they can use this to commit fraud and potentially access the company’s bank account.
How can you spot a HMRC scam letter?
It can be a little tricky at first to recognise a fake letter, as they use correct technical and legal terms and typically avoid spelling or linguistic errors that would be a clear giveaway of a scam.
While HMRC does request information from businesses by letter, the two things you should remember to look for that indicate a scam include:
- A fraudulent email address, such as companies-review@hmrc-taxchecks.org
- Lack of your company’s unique tax reference number (UTR)
A legitimate HMRC letter will always include the company’s UTR and official email addresses, which end in @hmrc.gov.uk. You should also be able to double-check communications from HMRC in your online tax account.
To help you confirm whether a letter you’ve received from HMRC is real, a list of genuine letters the tax agency has sent out is available to check on gov.uk.
It can also help to have a tax consultant on your side to manage HMRC enquiries on your behalf, helping you keep your tax accounts up to date and avoid prompting from HMRC.
If you would benefit from the assistance of accountants in Barnsley, contact gbac today to learn more about what we can do for your business. You can reach us by calling 01226 298 298, or email your query to info@gbac.co.uk and we’ll get back to you soon.