Fraudsters target companies with fake HMRC letters
HMRC is warning business owners to ignore a letter from fraudsters pretending to be the tax authority and demanding confidential business information and bank statements.
The mailed letter has a fake letterhead with the HMRC logo and pretends to have been sent from the ‘Indv and Small Business Compliance’ team.
Identifying fake letters
The letters look very genuine and can easily be mistaken as actual HMRC correspondence, however, the quickest way to identify the fake letter is to check out the email address which is clearly fake.
The fraudsters are using a bogus email: companies-review@hmrc-taxchecks.org. All HMRC email addresses contain the government domain name gov.uk and always end with @hmrc.gov.uk so that is the first thing to check.
Additionally, these letters go on to request various confidential details to be sent to them digitally, such as, identity documents, bank statements, VAT returns, filed accounts with full profit and loss accounts, which are of course not available on Companies house for smaller companies reporting under micro accounts or filleted accounts rules.
HMRC very rarely requests any information by email, with the default method of communication by letter or through the online portal and digital tax accounts.
Enhance Due Diligence
These letters aim to cause panic and distress amongst individuals and business owners, resulting in many unwittingly disclosing sensitive personal and financial information, and thus becoming victims of identity fraud.
We want to reassure you that if we act for you as your agent and receive a letter regarding any service we provide, we will always carry out all necessary checks to ensure the information received is correct before it is passed onto you.
However, if we do not act for you for a particular service, yet receive a letter regarding it, we would pass this onto you to complete your own checks, as we do not have access to that service on the HMRC portal.
If you are concerned that you may have received a letter like this and made a payment, please contact your bank as soon as possible to inform them of this, as well as HMRC through their guidance on reporting internet scams and phishing – Avoid and report internet scams and phishing: Report internet scams and phishing – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)