Do you know how to spot a tax scammer? A new report published by HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) has looked into one of the most common scams and what steps it is taking to combat them.
According to the report, taxpayers should always be on the lookout for fraudulent websites designed to look and operate like HMRC’s official website.
These fake websites will often direct the public to call numbers with extortionate costs. HMRC says these phone lines are merely call forwarding services which connect callers to HMRC at a significant price.
The tax office says it has successfully challenged a number of these websites and saved the public around £2.4 million which would have been lost to these kinds of phone scams.
Taxpayers have been advised to always use the Freephone number on the official gov.uk website.
Treasury Minister, Mel Stride MP the Financial Secretary to the Treasury said: “We know that HMRC is the most spoofed government brand as criminals try to take advantage of the fact that everyone has some involvement with the tax authority. In this particular case, scammers try to dupe the public into paying large sums for services that are available for free or low cost.
“This is a brazen con, charging premium rates whilst simply redirecting calls to the real HMRC numbers that are available at low or no cost. It is a testament to the hard work of HMRC that they have prevented criminals extracting £2.4m from the public.
“The public should go direct to gov.uk to obtain genuine HMRC contact numbers. These will not be premium rate numbers. People should be alert for sponsored adverts, websites charging for government services which would be expected to be free and those with disclaimers denying association with HMRC or government.”
The extend fraudsters will go to take money from the public does not end there, however. Taxpayers should also be on the lookout for fake emails – known as phishing emails – as well as fraudulent phone calls and letters, with the more sinister intention of stealing personal and highly sensitive information.