This week's opinion: 18 June 2020

I was accused of tax fraud last week! Not I hasten to say by HMRC but by an automated phone message. 

I do not normally answer calls if I don’t recognise the caller’s number but I was expecting a parcel and delivery drivers sometimes ring to ask me to come to the door. So I answered the phone and was met, not by the voice of the driver, but by a recorded message from a solemn-voiced man telling me that HMRC was about to take action against me for tax fraud and requiring me to ring back. Needless to say I did not.

The feeling passed quickly, but the fact that I did, even for a moment, have that reaction was illuminating. It shows how easily a fraudster can get under our skin. It is very easy to imagine many vulnerable people taking such a call seriously and being drawn in. But I do not claim any intellectual superiority here. Because of my job it would be hard for me to be taken in by a tax scam, but I can quite understand that in another area of finance I could panic and become a victim of financial crime. 

Fear of getting called out by HMRC – even when it is a scammer doing it – is real. Just for a moment I felt like a client receiving an official letter from HMRC opening an enquiry into my tax affairs.