Have You Received an Email from HMRC?

HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has warned taxpayers to be on the alert for fraudulent emails.

Following the Tax Return deadline, criminals have been busy sending out phishing emails which claim to offer people tax refunds. They are, in fact, fraudulent.

The emails provide a click-through link to a replica of the HMRC website. The recipient is then asked to provide their credit card details. Fraudsters use the information to try to strip funds from the person's account. In the last three months, HMRC has shut down 99 websites that were responsible for sending out the fake tax rebate emails.

Chris Hopson, director of customer contact at HMRC, said that, as a matter of policy, HMRC will only ever contact customers who are due a tax refund in writing by post. He added: "If anyone receives an email offering a tax rebate claiming to be from HMRC, we recommend they send it to phishing@hmrc.gsi.gov.uk before deleting it permanently."

Should anyone receive a suspicious email claiming to be from the tax authorities, HMRC has advice on how to deal with it. Suspicious emails should be forwarded to HMRC at phishing@hmrc.gsi.gov.uk and then deleted from recipients' computers and mail accounts.

Nobody should click on the websites or on the links contained in suspicious emails, or open any attachments.

HMRC never use emails so if you recieve an email from HMRC delete it or contact your Tax Advisor.

Please feel free to contact me mitch@ljd.uk.com