SMALL businesses in York and North Yorkshire have again been warned by a top accountancy firm that fraudsters are again trying to dupe them with a highly realistic HMRC compliance letter.

Scammers have been forced to change the fake email address on correspondence after a public warning from Azets, which received nationwide attention.

Sajid Ghufoor, who leads Azets’ tax investigations and dispute resolution service and whose career includes 27 years working as a senior investigator for HMRC, raised the alarm in August.

Since then, to try and keep one step ahead, the scammers have changed the fake email address on the same letter from companies-review@hmrc-taxchecks.org to audit@hmrc-revenuecheck.com

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Sajid, who works out of Azets’ London office, urged people in charge of finances to always check the email address on letters – genuine ones have a hmrc.gov.uk ending.

He said: “If there is no hmrc.gov.uk ending, you are a target of sophisticated scammers. These compliance letters, with near-future deadline dates, are meant to panic businesses into providing financial information which can be used for identity theft to set up loans or clear out bank accounts.”

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As previously reported, the fake compliance letter resembles the technical language and font of HMRC correspondence and could easily by mistaken for being authentic.

Sajid said in August: “This is probably the best scam letter I have seen up until now. They have sought to use an HMRC team and use the right technical legislation and language – previously others have used non-UK tax legislation.

“The highly realistic letter is headlined ‘we need to verify your financial information’ and asks for business bank statements from the past 13 months, most recent full version of filed accounts, business VAT returns for the last four quarters and photos of directors, from passports or driving licences.

“If you provide the fraudsters with these details, there is a strong chance of identity theft taking place of both the company and directors in order to clear out bank accounts and open up the opportunity for VAT fraud.

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“Mimicking government messaging, these letters from criminals have the look and tone of authenticity, with ‘Indv and Small Business Compliance’ on the top right.”

The letter ends: “If you do not reply we will conduct an investigation and possibly freeze any business activity until we conclude our investigation. This letter is not proof of your identity.”

Azets urged small business owners and their staff to be on the alert, saying the scam letters may arrive by email as well as by post.

This week Sajid posted on LinkedIn, the business-to-business social media platform: “Please be vigilant. These scammers are persistent - we have seen another scam letter purporting to be from HMRC.

“The letter is exactly the same including the serial number down the left-hand side other than the email address which has been changed but still doesn't end with .gov.uk [gov.uk].”

Based on latest government figures, there are nearly 1.2 million businesses in the UK employing one to nine staff, with nearly 223,000 employing between 10 to 49.

Sajid said: “The fraudsters have a rich reserve to pick from, which is why businesses need to be on guard.” 

HMRC should be doing more to prevent scammers mimicking HMRC’s nudge letters for criminal purposes, Sajid added.

Azets has three offices in Yorkshire, in Leeds, Bradford and York where it employs 334 people.