We're seeing multiple copies of the below spam dropping into mailboxes at the moment, all of which claim to be an automated tax refund of £796.86 for UK tax payers.

copies of tax spam

The email reads as follows: 

Automated Tax Refund Notification
After the last annual calculations of your fiscal activity , we determined that you
are aligible to receive a tax refund of 796.86 £ .
Please submit the tax refund request and allow us 10-14 days in order to process it.
To access your tax refund, please follow the steps bellow:
- Download the Tax Refund attached to this email
- Open it in a browser
- Follow the instructions on your screen
NOTE: A refund can be delayed a variety of reasons , for exemple submitting invalid
records or applying after deadline.
Revenue and Tax Administrator
fake tax refund mail

The emails come with a HTML attachment:

fake tax attachment

The attachment opens up a phishing page which asks for the usual personal information, including name, email, DOB, city, phone number, full card details and sort code / account number.

fake hmrc phish page

Hitting the submit button sends the data to the scammers.

The official HMRC site has a number of pages [1], [2], [3], on tax themed scams and how you can spot them. Forewarned is forearmed, and nobody wants to lose a small fortune to tax-scam phishers - if in doubt, give those advice links a read and be careful where you send your data.

Christopher Boyd