The ICAEW’s Tax Faculty is urging businesses to act now to ensure that they are not caught out by fraudulent attempts to gain access to their VAT repayments.
Lisa Jones, Client Services Director, has outlined the details of the current fraudulent activities, who is at risk and how to safeguard your business.
Take it away Lisa
There has been a current surge in the number of deceptive efforts being used to gain access to businesses’ VAT repayments. Fraudsters have been using paper form VAT 484 to update business information such as the contact information and bank details of unsuspecting businesses, so that repayments are diverted to them.
It’s essential to make sure you stay vigilant and take preventive measures so that you don’t fall victim to these sneaky scammers.
Who is at risk?
Whilst repayment traders have been the primary targets (these are traders whose deductible input tax regularly exceeds their output tax), no VAT registered business is safe.
Unfortunately, in many cases, businesses won’t know they’re a victim of this fraud until it’s too late- i.e. the VAT repayment expected hasn’t hit their bank account.
How to safeguard your business
It’s paramount that you check your HMRC online VAT account regularly, to ensure your personal, contact and bank details are accurate, making sure that your Government Gateway log in details are protected.
If you think there has been any suspicious activity, or if you receive an unexpected notification of changes to your details, you must promptly report this to HMRC, to help prevent financial losses.
If you’ll shortly be submitting a VAT return in a repayment position then check, check and check again that your bank details are correct on the HMRC portal!
HMRC are currently writing to any businesses who have made changes to their details since January 2024, so do make sure you acknowledge ALL communications from HMRC regarding changes to your VAT account now and in the future.
Here to help
If you are worried about the recent fraudulent activity or have any concerns that you’d like to chat through with an expert, we’re here to help.
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