The Jonathan Ford & Co Advent Calendar – Day 16
Over the course of the festive season we’ll be bringing you an advent calendar’s worth of tax and financial tips. Some of them might even be a little Christmassy! There’s a cautionary tale behind door number 16…
Beware of scams
Christmas is a joyous time of year but it can be expensive. So that email you’ve just received from HMRC promising you a refund seems to have arrived at an opportune moment. You just need to click the link, complete an online form with your bank details and, just as AC/DC promised, you’re account balance will be back in black.
Whoa whoa whoa! That’s English for stop a horse. Or in this case, stop reading the email and delete it immediately because it’s a scam. If you are due a tax refund, HMRC will never contact you about it by email or text message and they certainly won’t ask for your bank details in that manner.
Now that we’ve cleared that up, here are some handy tips to keep your cash out of fraudsters’ hands:
- Never enter your bank details after you’ve clicked a link in an email from an untrusted source. In fact, don’t click links in untrusted emails, full stop
- Always familiarise yourself with the URLs of businesses and organisations you deal with so if you do follow a link then you can identify if it’s a fake website or not. For example, government agencies such as HMRC will have a URL that always begins www.gov.uk
- Never give your bank details to somebody who has called you. Politely decline and inform them that you will contact their organisation at a later time, preferably via a different means of communication, e.g. by logging into your online account with that organisation. If you choose to call back then you should obtain the number from that organisation’s official website
- Always verify if payment or refund requests are genuine. For example, login to your online account or if you’re a client of ours then we will be able to tell you if you are due a tax refund
- Never reveal your PIN to anybody ever
So if you are actually due a tax refund, how do you go about getting it repaid to you? Most tax refunds are calculated at the point a tax return is prepared so the easiest way is to enter your bank details onto your tax return. When HMRC process your return, they will then automatically issue your refund by bank transfer.
You can also request a refund by logging into your personal tax account or by getting us, as your tax agent, to request it on your behalf. You can also fill in an official online form provided by HMRC which can be found here.
Always, remember: if something appears too good to be true then it probably is.
