I had a letter from HMRC today, saying a bank transfer was being made for £2450.80 for the 2015 SA tax return (to a bank a/c not listed to my client)
Checking online - a SA was completed showing £32,000 earnings, £7,010 tax paid resulting in the refund.
Client is very nice lady who does house cleaning and is honest enough to do a SA even though most of her income is cash. She came to me in a panic this evening - what's this all about, she says her husband couldn't have done it, no one visiting her house could have accessed her files.
My computer security is pretty good, one of the family is a computer security officer - so pretty hot on my security.
Any suggestions how I tackle this, and how are our beloved HMRC likely to respond - anyone had similar problem
Replies (8)
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Report it to HMRC pronto
Report it to HMRC initially. It could simply be an innocent error - or it could be a fraud.
David
Last year we had this happen to a few clients at the same time. HMRC spotted them before the refunds were issued, it was a fraud, not undertaken by our clients. HMRC advised us which clients were affected and the clients were issued with new UTRs. As David has said, you should advise HMRc as soon as possible.
Innocent error
as David says is extremely possible at this time of year.
A paper return resulting in a refund must be the most common piece of post at the moment and if one number of UTR is mistyped ....
call HMRC immediately
Last year we had this happen to a few clients at the same time. HMRC spotted them before the refunds were issued, it was a fraud, not undertaken by our clients. HMRC advised us which clients were affected and the clients were issued with new UTRs. As David has said, you should advise HMRc as soon as possible
heard that from more than one accountant
We came across this a few weeks ago when employees (unrepresented) of a particular hospital alleged that someone representing UKtaxrefund Ltd or something similar visited them and got a certain form signed, with the result that refunds genuinely due to them found their way to a certain bank account! I think that refund processing a big business and HMRC's systems are more mechanical in that respect.