Beware internet phishers

The end of January, self-assessment filing deadline, and the approaching tax year end seem to stimulate fraudulent activity focussing on tax issues.

In particular, increasingly convincing attempts are made to get tax payers to part with their personal bank details or other personal information for nefarious purposes.

HMRC will never ask for your personal details, particularly your bank or credit card information, by email. Accordingly, if you receive an email requesting this sort of data do not respond.

On their website HMRC confirm that they will never use texts or emails to:

• tell you about a tax rebate or penalty
• ask for personal or payment information

They also advise that you should forward suspicious text messages to 60599 or forward suspicious emails to HMRC’s phishing team at phishing@hmrc.gsi.gov.uk.