Is surprise tax rebate the real deal or a scam?
QWHAT little tax I pay on my retirement income is collected automatically by my former employer (who pays me an occupational pension to boost my state money) using the same PAYE process as when I was working. The tiny amount of interest I get on my savings is more than covered by the free amount I can earn. I don’t have other investments and I have never had to fill in a selfassessment form. So why did I get an email from HMRC saying that I had a £772.34 rebate? Is this a mistake?
ANO. It’s not an error or a sudden tax rule change but a blatant racket. It’s one that appears even more at this time of year as many prepare selfassessment returns.
HMRC has a chunk of its website (put HMRC Fraud Warning into a search engine to find this) devoted to avoiding tax scams. While the advice is to delete any email looking phoney, that is sometimes easier to say than to do. So look for clues.
The first sign this is a rip-off comes in the heading which uses the American spelling of “Center” rather than the UK English “centre”. Whatever you think of the tax people, they can spell!
Secondly, the “Confidential Secured Information” comes from someone called “Kenohiko” with a Japanese (.co.jp) email address – almost certainly a lie as well as it’s easy to set these up – just as it’s simple to copy HMRC logos.
This is almost certainly a phishing attempt to get your bank details. But it might also suggest that to free up your “refund”, you send money to them as a “facilitating fee”.
HMRC never sends rebate or personal messages by email. It always posts. It wants recipients to forward emails to phishing@hmrc.gsi.gov.uk for investigation before deletion.