HMRC and The Tax System Exposes Taxpayers To Fraud

As loyal readers, and non readers, are aware the number of scams whereby the perpetrators claim to be HMRC are on the rise.

BBC Radio 5 Live's Wake Up to Money reported that cases had risen to about 85,000 a month now, compared with 70,000 on a typical month last year. These are cases when fraudsters contact potential victims via phone, text or email, claiming to be from HMRC, and often suggesting people are owed a tax refund or need to pay more.

 

Chas Roy-Chowdhury, who is head of taxation at ACCA, said that taxpayers (that's all of us) were the weak point in the battle against fraud. They should not be criticised, he said, as con artists were exploiting the lack of interaction with the authorities.


He is quoted by the BBC:

"The weakest link is the taxpayer. It is difficult to be too critical of the taxpayer and HMRC because many of the scammers are using the opaqueness of tax and our interactions or lack of with HMRC to steal the taxpayers money.

Most people are scared of HMRC and regardless of how fully up to date their tax affairs are will always, because of the opaqueness of tax, give HMRC the benefit of the doubt and think they have underpaid."

He suggested people checked that any correspondence with HMRC tied in with an individual's tax assessment.

He also urged people to look up the official HMRC phone numbers before calling, rather than assuming any number they were told was correct.

"It is a new world we live in when it comes to tax scams, don't be a victim and do your own due diligence. Just a few simple checks to avoid being taken for a ride."

He's being very polite, part of the weakness of the system that exposes taxpayers to fraudsters is the complexity of the tax system (so complex that even HMRC doesn't understand it), and the lousy systems and practises that HMRC operates that makes it all but impossible not to be afraid of it or to communicate meaningfully with it.

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

Insurance to protect you against the cost of enquiry or dispute with HMRC is available from several sources including Solar Tax Investigation Insurance.

Ken Frost has negotiated a 10% discount on any polices that may suit your needs.

However, neither Ken Frost nor HMRCISSHITE either endorses or recommends their services.

What is Solar Tax Investigation Insurance?

Solar Tax Investigation Insurance is a tax-fee protection service that will pay up to £75,000 towards your accountant's fees in the event of an HM Revenue & Customs full enquiry or dispute.

To find out more, please use this link Solar Tax Investigation Insurance



HMRC Is Shite (www.hmrcisshite.com), also available via the domain www.hmrconline.com, is brought to you by www.kenfrost.com "The Living Brand"

HMRC Most Phished Brand In The UK

HMRC is one of the most phished brands in the UK, so we're supporting #TakeFiveWeek this week @TakeFive https://t.co/kQhEz0PbTA

— HM Revenue & Customs (@HMRCgovuk) January 22, 2018

I have to say I have never considered that HMRC is a brand, that being the case is it a good brand or a bad brand?

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

Insurance to protect you against the cost of enquiry or dispute with HMRC is available from several sources including Solar Tax Investigation Insurance.

Ken Frost has negotiated a 10% discount on any polices that may suit your needs.

However, neither Ken Frost nor HMRCISSHITE either endorses or recommends their services.

What is Solar Tax Investigation Insurance?

Solar Tax Investigation Insurance is a tax-fee protection service that will pay up to £75,000 towards your accountant's fees in the event of an HM Revenue & Customs full enquiry or dispute.

To find out more, please use this link Solar Tax Investigation Insurance



HMRC Is Shite (www.hmrcisshite.com), also available via the domain www.hmrconline.com, is brought to you by www.kenfrost.com "The Living Brand"

A Tad Phishy

Oh dear this scammer really needs to up his/her game, even the spelling is off key!

Dear taxpayer,

Hello *******, I am sending this email to announce that after the last annual calculation of your fiscal activity we have determined that you are eligible to receive a tax return of £275.49. In order to receive your refund, you need to create a Government Gateway account.

Refund #5964327489

Issuing Date: Wednesday, April 20 , 2016 Expiration Date: Thursday, April 21 , 2016 Receiver: ********** Payment Method: Electronically by Card Refundable Ammount : £275.49

If you don't create a government gateway account, you will not receive your refund.
This email was sent from a notification-only address that cannot accept incoming email. Please do not reply to this message.
This is an automated email sent to *******. If you already claimed your tax return , please ignore this email.
Crown Copyright

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

Insurance to protect you against the cost of enquiry or dispute with HMRC is available from several sources including Solar Tax Investigation Insurance.

Ken Frost has negotiated a 10% discount on any polices that may suit your needs.

However, neither Ken Frost nor HMRCISSHITE either endorses or recommends their services.

What is Solar Tax Investigation Insurance?

Solar Tax Investigation Insurance is a tax-fee protection service that will pay up to £75,000 towards your accountant's fees in the event of an HM Revenue & Customs full enquiry or dispute.

To find out more, please use this link Solar Tax Investigation Insurance



HMRC Is Shite (www.hmrcisshite.com), also available via the domain www.hmrconline.com, is brought to you by www.kenfrost.com "The Living Brand"

HMRC Goes Phishing - The Many "Lovers" of Ms Balandis

Last week I wrote the following:

"Debbie Balandis, a single mother, has had a wee bit of a falling out with HMRC, after HMRC threatened to stop her £140 per week child tax credits; because it thought that she was in a relationship.

The "man" that HMRC identified as her partner, based on activity viewed by HMRC of her bank account, was Martin McColl.

All very fine, except that Martin McColl is the trading name of her local branch of RS McColl (a chain of newsagents)."

Sadly for Ms Balandis HMRC are not taking their error lying down, as Ms Balandis is quoted by the Daily Record:

“I went to a Citizens Advice office on Wednesday to get this sorted out as I have literally not a single penny. A representative called HMRC and they told her they actually have me on their records as having three boyfriends now.

I’m apparently having a relationship with the post office, a previous tenant and now my landlord which is completely untrue.”

Presumably the landlord and previous tenant have also shown up on her bank statements.

Sounds like a bit of a phishing trip to me!

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

Insurance to protect you against the cost of enquiry or dispute with HMRC is available from several sources including Solar Tax Investigation Insurance.

Ken Frost has negotiated a 10% discount on any polices that may suit your needs.

However, neither Ken Frost nor HMRCISSHITE either endorses or recommends their services.

What is Solar Tax Investigation Insurance?

Solar Tax Investigation Insurance is a tax-fee protection service that will pay up to £75,000 towards your accountant's fees in the event of an HM Revenue & Customs full enquiry or dispute.

To find out more, please use this link Solar Tax Investigation Insurance



HMRC Is Shite (www.hmrcisshite.com), also available via the domain www.hmrconline.com, is brought to you by www.kenfrost.com "The Living Brand"

HMRC's Scattergun Approach To Tax Collection

The child benefit clusterfuck created by Osborne has, as expected, caused a mass of confusion and extra costs.

HMRC has been berated by UHY Hacker Young for sending out "incorrect" letters to higher rate taxpayers it suspects have not repaid their child benefit payments.

HMRC has sent out 30,000 letters, in a scattergun approach, to parents who it claims failed to account for the child benefit charge when they completed last year’s self-assessment tax return.

UHY Hacker Young says that this has caused "widespread confusion", as HMRC appears to have failed to check whether the payment has already been paid by an individual’s partner before sending out the letters.

Mike Crellin, a tax director at UHY Hacker Young, is quoted by the Telegraph:

"We have had lots of queries about these letters from concerned taxpayers, who thought they had their affairs in order but are now worried that they have made an expensive mistake.

In most cases, they have in fact completed the return and paid their tax perfectly correctly.

HMRC has gone to the lengths of checking the child benefit database, but it hasn’t joined the dots by working out who in the household is supposed to be paying the additional charge and whether or not it has been paid. It is putting the burden of doing that checking on the tax payer, and the scattergun approach is certainly causing a lot of unnecessary worry in the process."

A spokesman for HMRC said those who have paid the charge should disregard the letter. He said:

"These letters are simply designed to help taxpayers get their returns right by reminding customers who file under self assessment of the importance of including the high income child benefit charge on their tax return." 

Scattergun approaches may be all very well, if you are an internet spammer or cold caller selling a PPI reclaim service. However, HMRC should be above such nonsense.

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

Insurance to protect you against the cost of enquiry or dispute with HMRC is available from several sources including Solar Tax Investigation Insurance.

Ken Frost has negotiated a 10% discount on any polices that may suit your needs.

However, neither Ken Frost nor HMRCISSHITE either endorses or recommends their services.

What is Solar Tax Investigation Insurance?

Solar Tax Investigation Insurance is a tax-fee protection service that will pay up to £75,000 towards your accountant's fees in the event of an HM Revenue & Customs full enquiry or dispute.

To find out more, please use this link Solar Tax Investigation Insurance



HMRC Is Shite (www.hmrcisshite.com), also available via the domain www.hmrconline.com, is brought to you by www.kenfrost.com "The Living Brand"

Spam Phishing

Yesterday I received an avalanche (well six actually) of spam emails purportedly from HMRC telling me that I have paid too much tax in the past, and inviting me to complete an attached from to reclaim the money.

Suffice to say that these emails are rather pathetic attempts to phish for my bank details and other personal information. They do not even use my name in the body of the mail.

HMRC do not communicate with taxpayers in this manner. In the event that you receive any such email, do not open the form and do not respond to it.

Here is one of the six that I received yesterday, they are all identical:

---

Dear ,
We have detected that you have paid too much tax in the past, due to an official error.
Therefore HMRC applied ESC B41 to issue a repayment for tax years which are now
out of date under the strict statute.

Please completely fill out the form above. Accurate information is necessary so that we
may process your request faster.

---

2014 © Crown Copyright (Personal and Corporate Tax Refund Center PCTRC) All rights reserved.
Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

Insurance to protect you against the cost of enquiry or dispute with HMRC is available from several sources including Solar Tax Investigation Insurance.

Ken Frost has negotiated a 10% discount on any polices that may suit your needs.

However, neither Ken Frost nor HMRCISSHITE either endorses or recommends their services.

What is Solar Tax Investigation Insurance?

Solar Tax Investigation Insurance is a tax-fee protection service that will pay up to £75,000 towards your accountant's fees in the event of an HM Revenue & Customs full enquiry or dispute.

To find out more, please use this link Solar Tax Investigation Insurance



HMRC Is Shite (www.hmrcisshite.com), also available via the domain www.hmrconline.com, is brought to you by www.kenfrost.com "The Living Brand"

Beware Scam "Rebate" Emails

HMRC is warning people who complete self-assessment tax returns not to open emails offering a tax rebate from HMRC.

The emails, the number of which are on the increase, are phishing attempts to persuade people to provide details such as date of birth, bank account numbers and passwords. The FT reports that in the three months to the January 31 filing deadline for tax returns, HMRC received more than 23,000 complaints about phishing emails, an increase of 50% compared with the previous year.

HMRC never emails taxpayers with details of a refund or asks them to send information in this way, such communications would only ever be by letter.

Those who receiving phishing emails should not open them; forward them instead to phishing@hmrc.gsi.gov.uk and then delete them.

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

Insurance to protect you against the cost of enquiry or dispute with HMRC is available from several sources including Solar Tax Investigation Insurance.

Ken Frost has negotiated a 10% discount on any polices that may suit your needs.

However, neither Ken Frost nor HMRCISSHITE either endorses or recommends their services.

What is Solar Tax Investigation Insurance?

Solar Tax Investigation Insurance is a tax-fee protection service that will pay up to £75,000 towards your accountant's fees in the event of an HM Revenue & Customs full enquiry or dispute.

To find out more, please use this link Solar Tax Investigation Insurance



HMRC Is Shite (www.hmrcisshite.com), also available via the domain www.hmrconline.com, is brought to you by www.kenfrost.com "The Living Brand"

Tax Credit Deadline

HMRC is advising people that 31 July is the deadline for people to submit their Annual Declarations for tax credits, so that payments can continue after this month.

It has also warned of another rash of "phishing" emails from fraudsters that inform people that they are owed a tax rebate, then take the hapless victim to a fake HMRC website asking for credit or debit card details.

You have been warned!

Tax does have to be taxing.

UK EXPATS: Reduce tax on UK Pensions
HMRC QROPS provider. Unlock your UK pension and access a 25% lump sum today.

Quote ID code "ABC" when contacting a QROPS specialist.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

What is TAXWISE?

TAXWISE is a tax-fee protection service that will pay up to £75,000 towards your accountant's fees in the event of an HM Revenue & Customs full enquiry or dispute.

To find out more, please use this link Taxwise

Tax Investigation for Dummies, by Nick Morgan, provides a good and easy to read guide for anyone caught up in an HMRC tax investigation. A must read for any Self Assessment taxpayer.

Click the link to read about: Tax Investigation for Dummies

HMRC Is Shite (www.hmrcisshite.com), also available via the domain www.hmrconline.com, is brought to you by www.kenfrost.com "The Living Brand"

Gone Phishing II

Earlier this month a loyal reader sent me a link to an article about a potential security flaw within the HMRC website, that may allow phishers to harvest personal information from the unwary user.

It transpires that there is another, similar, security flaw within the HMRC site. Concept Business System explain the issues here.

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

What is TAXWISE?

TAXWISE is a tax-fee protection service that will pay up to £75,000 towards your accountant's fees in the event of an HM Revenue & Customs full enquiry or dispute.

To find out more, please use this link Taxwise

Tax Investigation for Dummies, by Nick Morgan, provides a good and easy to read guide for anyone caught up in an HMRC tax investigation. A must read for any Self Assessment taxpayer.

Click the link to read about: Tax Investigation for Dummies

HMRC Is Shite (www.hmrcisshite.com), also available via the domain www.hmrconline.com, is brought to you by www.kenfrost.com "The Living Brand"

Gone Phishing

My thanks to a loyal reader who sent me a link to an article about a potential security flaw within the HMRC website, that may allow phishers to harvest personal information from the unwary user.

Here is a summary of the issue from Concept Business Systems (who also put together the video above):

Summary:
A potentially dangerous cross site scripting vulnerability has been discovered on Her Majesty's Customs & Excise web site.

Description:
This exploit allows anyone to alter content shown on the HMRC.gov.uk search site.

As we've shown below, it's possible to change any part of the site. If exploited, a fraudster could potentially gain access to user accounts by forwarding a malicious link by email, web forum or chat message. HMRC are a prime target for phishing scams, but success rates are limited for a number of reasons. The main problem fraudsters face is trying to convince their victims that the site (and email) is genuine. Quite often, it's simple grammatical / spelling mistakes which give the game away. Unfortunately, some scams are very well executed and can fool even the most careful users.

All phishing scams are dangerous, but this is no ordinary phishing scam and it stands out for a two reasons.

1. It's a very high profile site.
2. The fraudster no longer needs to clone the site, these changes can be made to the genuine site... thus hiding the scam behind the correct URL (www.hmrc.gov.uk) and giving the user a false sense of security.

In the video below, we've altered the content and replaced it with a message asking the user to login in order to perform a tailored search. This message and the form beneath are fake; created purely to collect your username & password. These details are not sent to HMRC's server and are therefore not covered by their SSL certificate (the padlock symbol). Instead, they are forwarded to an address of the hackers choice.

With phishing scams & identity theft a real cause for concern, this needs to be resolved as a matter of urgency.

If you suspect you've been a victim of such a scam, it's absolutely vital that you change your password as soon as possible, particularly if you're an agent acting on behalf of other clients.

Also, email security.custcon@hmrc.gsi.gov.uk This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

DO NOT disclose any personal details in your email... simply outline the type of information you disclosed and to whom.

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

What is TAXWISE?

TAXWISE is a tax-fee protection service that will pay up to £75,000 towards your accountant's fees in the event of an HM Revenue & Customs full enquiry or dispute.

To find out more, please use this link Taxwise

Tax Investigation for Dummies, by Nick Morgan, provides a good and easy to read guide for anyone caught up in an HMRC tax investigation. A must read for any Self Assessment taxpayer.

Click the link to read about: Tax Investigation for Dummies

HMRC Is Shite (www.hmrcisshite.com), also available via the domain www.hmrconline.com, is brought to you by www.kenfrost.com "The Living Brand"

Scam Alert

I may be 100% wrong, but I have a "gut feeling" that this email that I have just received (see below) is in fact a scam;)

HM Revenue & Customs
Crownhill Court
Tailyour Road
Plymouth
PL6 5BZ

http://www.hmrc.co.uk/

Dear Applicant,

We are pleased to notify you of the result of the HM Revenue & Customs program held on the 15TH June 2009.You have therefore been approved for a sum payment of 168,240.00 GBP only, payable in Lloyds TSB cashiers check credited to security credited file numbers GWK/558B/5355/UAD in the United Kingdom.

Due to the security, we ask that you keep all information confidential until your claim will be processed and your money remitted to you.

THIS IS PART OF OUR SECURITY PROTOCOLS TO AVOID UNWARRANTED ABUSE OF THIS PROGRAM BY SOME UNKNOWN PARTICIPANTS.

Complete and print the form attached and send to info@lloydstsbprize.com and allow us 3-9 business days in order to process it.

Lloyds TSB BANKUnited KingdomAccount ManagerMs. Kelly Campbellinfo@lloydstsbprize.com0945 100 9005 Your tax file number (TFN): 8 2 1 0 8 4 4 7 9

This will enable the office to verify your claim.

Regards,

HM Revenue & Customs
Crownhill Court
Tailyour Road
Plymouth
PL6 5BZ

http://www.hmrc.co.uk/

Tax does have to be taxing.

Click the link to read about: Tax Investigation for Dummies

HMRC Is Shite (www.hmrcisshite.com), also available via the domain www.hmrconline.com, is brought to you by www.kenfrost.com "The Living Brand"

Gone Phishing

Those of you who file your tax returns online, or who have received emails from an organisation claiming to be "HMRC", need to be aware that there is in fact a fake HMRC website in cyberspace that has been set up to "phish" bank details from the unwary.

The fake site uses the same graphics, fonts and styling as HMRC's site and gathers web users' names, addresses and credit card details.

The fake then redirects people to the real HMRC website.

The "phishing" emails claim that HMRC has conducted a review of the person's tax affairs, and has found that they are due a rebate of £70.

Under no circumstances reply to these emails, or click on the link.

HMRC will never send emails telling you that you have a rebate inviting you to verify your bank details on line.

Tax does have to be taxing.

HMRC Is Shite (www.hmrcisshite.com), also available via the domain www.hmrconline.com, is brought to you by www.kenfrost.com "The Living Brand"