Is HMRC getting too hip?

In their attempts to contact "customers" in different ways, HMRC is also opening up new ways for scammers and phishers to try and get hold of confidential information.

Apparently HMRC now send out emails to taxpayers, but we are assured that they never ask us for credit card or similar details. My experience of HMRC emails is that they always ask me to ring them back on a premium rate number (beginning 0845), because of the security risk of actually saying anything in an email to me.

They have gone one step further now and are sending out SMS text messages. How? Where did they get my mobile phone number from? I don't even know what my mobile phone number is. Again the message asks you to call them back (on an 0845 number) The problem is that anyone can send you a text saying they are from the tax man and can then get you to pay for the phone call that allows them to rip you off!

Perhaps HMRC could take their "customer" approach a step further and offer 0800 numbers instead of 0845 numbers - that would put off the scammers.

Or maybe they could actually telephone us rather than sending voicemail messages.But no - that would not work - how could we possibly get them to verify that they are genuinely from HMRC - could they tell us the date of the last letter they wrote to us or the amount they think we owe on the most recent tax statement? The only answer would be to call them back and the chances of being put through to the person who has called you is probably very slim!

If you think this is a joke, have a look at http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/security/index.htm and the related links.

Antiavoidance rules

There has been a lot in the press recently about the difference between evasion and avoidance.

Now that MPs expense claims have been made public, there is a lot of concern about them breaking the rules.

There is of course a big difference between breaking the rules and claiming for something you are not entitled to (which we might call evasion) and following the rules and claiming for something which the rules did not really mean you to have but that you are entitled to (which we might call avoidance).

So are we going to see a new set of rules which will be much tighter or rules drawn up in a different way which will rely on principles more than details?

Hang on - isn't that what the prime minister and chancellor have been saying about tax? They want to claw back all the tax that has been avoided by claiming what was allowed by the rules.

Sadly the government finances are not going to be sorted out by MPs repaying expenses that in retrospect they should not have claimed.

But if MPs were only obeying the rules which they had themselves written about their own expense - can they blame the rest of us for obeying the tax rules and claiming everything we are entitled to under the rules? Can they demand a higher standard than they exhibit themselves?

Will the government begin to see things from the other side of the fence (the side so many MPs appear to be on when claiming expenses) and change the language they use? Perhaps "unacceptable tax avoidance" will become "bringing the country's tax system into disrepute" and the tax system updated with this in mind.