Last month, HMRC made coordinated arrests of several individuals in locations across England as part of an investigation into suspected Self Assessment repayment fraud and money laundering offences. As a result, HMRC is warning individuals not to share their personal information online to avoid their identities being used to commit tax fraud.
In the cases seen so far, individuals are being targeted on social media platforms and offered the opportunity to ‘lend’ their identities to a fraudster, who promises a cut of the tax refund in a fraud that they claim is ‘risk free’. However, handing over sensitive personal information to criminals like this, even inadvertently, risks individuals involving themselves in tax fraud, and being liable to pay back the full value of the fraudulent claim.
HMRC is reminding tax payers that they should not share their Government Gateway logins or other personal details, including bank account details, national insurance numbers, ID documents and date of birth. Passing these details on to a fraudster could result in your identity being ‘cloned’ and used for many other nefarious purposes in addition to this latest tax fraud scam. The onus would then be on you as the individual to prove that any criminal activity was not your own action, but a case of identity theft.
You should only deal with HMRC directly, or through your accountant for any matter relating to your tax matters, including your Self-Assessment tax refund. Remember that there are many fake HMRC call, text and email scams doing the rounds, and if you have any doubts about the veracity of a communication purporting to be from HMRC you should contact your accountant for advice. Any such fake HMRC communications should be reported to HMRC via this link.