PKF has criticised the taxman’s new alerts service as ‘a waste of time’, and has urged recipients not to respond to messages for reasons of safety.
In an attempt to cut operational costs, HMRC are currently trialling a system of automated texts and voicemails to contact taxpayers who owe outstanding taxes or overpaid tax credits.
Those who receive a message are expected contact the Revenue on either 0191 225 5348 or 0845 300 3900. The department has warned that only messages quoting these phone numbers are legitimate, and all others are part of new identity theft scams.
The chances of a seemingly legitimate alert turning out to be fraudulent is too high to risk replying to any message, said PKF.
‘We are urging individuals and businesses not to respond… as it is just not safe,’ said Matt Coward, director of personal tax.
He added: ‘How is anyone receiving a text or call purporting to be from HMRC to know whether or not it really is from the tax authorities? Do HMRC expect every recipient to spend time digging around on the Revenue website to check out that the response number is genuine?
‘I know that HMRC is duty bound to try to save money and to look at all communication technologies, but this is clearly a waste of time.
'I suspect that most people will simply put down the phone as soon as they realise that the call is automated. With text messages, few will expect to receive one from HMRC so, one hopes, they would treat it with the utmost suspicion.’
Mr Coward went on to suggest that the Revenue operate an ‘opt in’ system that allows taxpayers to choose to receive alerts, which should ‘carry some form of personalised accreditation’ as a guarantee of authenticity.
He concluded by saying that HMRC’s most practical option would be to ‘simply use the funds spent on such exercises to clear the huge backlog’ of letters from taxpayers.
