13 January 2014 | Taxation
Email which you receive which purports to come from HMRC it is almost certainly a scam, but later this year they are likely to start issuing some very important emails to taxpayers.
A recent consultation which has just finished is expected to encourage HMRC to start sending our tax return reminders, penalty notices, and other legally important correspondence as a matter of course.
With so many scam emails purporting to be from HMRC at the moment, there is a danger that people will miss very important communications in amongst the junk.
Firstly, of course, you haver to sign up for these services, and our strong suggestion is to create an email address that you use only for communications with HMRC, and one that is unlikely to be guessed by a scammer by accident or design.
So don’t use “admin@yourdomain.co.uk” or even “john@” and definitely NOT “hmrc@” but do register with something like “idontwantthis@” or “peterm4ck4y@” and use that account only for receiving official email.