Tax deadlines, such as the annual January 31 deadline for filing UK self-assessment tax returns, typically cause an uptick in tax scams. This year, for example, an ad for a costly connection service disguised as the British tax authority’s phone number is appearing at the top of search engine results for the agency’s contact details.
But it’s much more common for tax fraudsters to rely on unsolicited phone calls to extract information and money from victims. Each year the UK’s HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) and the US Inland Revenue Service (IRS) post warnings and updated lists of such bogus calls and phishing schemes. At any one time there are many different types of tax scammers attempting to trick unsuspecting people into handing over money to pay fake penalties and charges.
HMRC responded to more than 180,000 reports of suspicious contact made by people in the 12 months to August 2022, and almost 81,000 of them were scams offering fake tax rebates to access victims’ bank details. In the US, similar reports of such suspicious activity grew from around 2 million to 8 million between 2021 and 2022, according to figures from the IRS.
When tax agencies warn people of such scams, they generally detail “phishing” attempts. This is when people are contacted and asked for private or sensitive information by someone pretending to be an official agency. This could happen because your contact information was stored in a database that has been hacked by…
