Taxpayers are being urged to remain cautious of digital approaches claiming to be from HMRC, as tax-related scams have almost doubled in the past 12 months. Writing to voluntary and community sector groups this week, HMRC’s Head of Cyber Security, Mike Fell, starkly warned: “These crimes often target the busy, unwary or vulnerable, but anyone can become a victim.”
He confirmed that the coronavirus pandemic had given criminals a “fresh hook for their activity”, with more than 460 COVID financial support scams detected by HMRC since early 2020, mostly by text message.
Furthermore, in the last year HMRC:
- Received more than a million referrals from the public about suspicious contact, nearly half offering bogus tax ”rebates” or “refunds”
- Worked with the telecoms industry and Ofcom to remove nearly 2,460 phone numbers being used to commit tax phone scams.
- received 441,954 reports of phone scams in total, 117% up on the previous year.
- Reported more than 13,315 malicious web pages for a takedown; and
- Asked internet service providers to take down 441 COVID-19 scam web pages.
At the end of July 2021, HMRC published a webpage to help taxpayers check that the contact they have received is genuinely from HMRC.
Check here for genuine HMRC contact that uses more than one communication method.
The page confirms that the number that HMRC texts from has changed recently, alongside detailing how taxpayers may be contacted for various ongoing research projects, including on off-payroll working and on corporation tax reliefs.