Received this e mail today not addressed to me but through my e mail, what do you think bogus?
The rebate number i have hidden incase it's ligit but i didn't "Click here"
Dear Applicant,
Tax Rebate
After the last calculations of your fiscal activity we have determined that you are eligible to receive a tax refund under section 501(c) (3) of the internal Revenue Code. Tax refund value is of 892 £
To access the form you tax refund , Click here
TAX REBATE NUMBER: U-HMRC/2012
Please allow us 7 days to process your refunds.
ATTENTION: Insufficient or incorrect information may lengthen the whole process.
Our head office address can be found on our web site at hmrc.gov.uk
Regards,
Internal Revenue Service.
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Of course.
They write to you if they want anything.
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just Google for the first few words of the email and you will know.
Do inform HMRC as advised below.
"Chris Hopson, director of customer contact at HMRC, said last month: "As a matter of policy, HMRC will only ever contact customers who are due a tax refund in writing by post. If anyone receives an email offering a tax rebate claiming to be from HMRC, we recommend they send it to phishing@hmrc.gsi.gov.uk before deleting it permanently."
In the previous three months, HMRC had shut down 99 websites that were responsible for sending out the fake tax rebate emails.
HMRC says it thoroughly investigates phishing attacks and works with other law enforcement agencies in the UK and overseas. In the last 18 months, scam networks have been shut down in a number of countries, including Austria, Mexico, the UK, South Korea, the USA, Thailand and Japan.
HMRC strongly advises customers to:
Check the advice published at www.hmrc.gov.uk/security to see if the email you have received is listed;
Forward suspicious emails to HMRC at phishing@hmrc.gsi.gov.uk and then delete it from your computer/mail account;
Do not click on websites, links contained in suspicious emails or open attachments;
Follow advice from www.getsafeonline.co.uk."
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Thanks John im sending the e mail to phishing@hmrc.gsi.gov.uk
Last edited by: Bigtee on Thu 19 Jan 12 at 19:18
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Googling "Internal Revenue Service email" suggests there are a lot of scams out there.
This is the official IRS advice.
www.irs.gov/privacy/article/0,,id=179820,00.html
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I thought you were British BigTee - IRS is an American version of HRMC.
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Well spotted yes im British.
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Googling "calculations of your fiscal activity" with the speech marks produces this as the first hit
www.snopes.com/fraud/phishing/irsrefund.asp
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Funnily enough been to see the very nice people at the HMRC today - bunch of thieving *****. Only way I can escape paying them money is to change my name to Mr Voda Fone apparently.
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Having asked me not to complete tax returns for three years, they asked me this August for 2009-10 and 2010-11. They have just fined me £100 for not completing the 2010-11 one by 30th November. They could only do this because I sent it in - had I not done so, I would have had until 30 Jan to do it on line!
The reason they wanted the returns was because they owed me £12,000 tax relief on pension contributions.
Bar stewards.
Last edited by: Manatee on Thu 19 Jan 12 at 19:37
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"They have just fined me £100 for not completing the 2010-11 one by 30th November."
I presume you meant 31st October? Well, that was my deadline.
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Completed my return last Sunday and got an instant reply indicating no tax payable.
I managed to get well under the tax allowance, helped by the fact that it went up in the middle of the tax year when I became an OAP.
I just hope they don't come back and want bank statements as proof......not for any other reason but I don't get paper statements and I'd have to print a year's off.
Simple enough on-line form, first one I've done.
Ted
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>> I presume you meant 31st October? Well, that was my deadline.
You're quite right. My error. I sent them in December anyway!
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Are such penalties appealable?
Suspect at one time they could have gone to the General Commissioners so presumably now the First-tier Tribunal?
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Yes you can appeal if you think you have a good reason:
www.hmrc.gov.uk/sa/appeals-decisions.htm
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>> The reason they wanted the returns was because they owed me £12,000 tax relief on
>> pension contributions.
That must have related to a whole lot of pension contributions!
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"Only way I can escape paying them money is to change my name to Mr Voda Fone apparently."
Perhaps we could get together on this RP - You be Mr Goldman and I'll be Mr Sachs, take the head of HMRC out for a nice lunch and be excused tax. You might even get a knighthood like Buchanan - director of Vodafone.
What gets me is that it has taken so long for HMRC to be rumbled on the lack of tax paid by these companies (£10 billion by Vodafone alone?) - Private Eye has been exposing it for 18 months - one law for the rich, one for the poor?
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>> What gets me is that it has taken so long for HMRC to be rumbled on the lack of tax paid by these companies (£10 billion by Vodafone alone?) - Private Eye has been exposing it for 18 months - one law for the rich, one for the poor? >>
Propagating and inflating an urban myth.
Official HMRC statement:
"There is no question of Vodafone having a tax liability of £6bn. That number is an urban myth."
A spokesman for Vodafone said: “Vodafone has never received a tax liability of £6bn or £8 billion. HMRC themselves have called this an ‘urban myth’. Vodafone does not have an unpaid tax bill in the UK – the allegations are unfounded.”
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They would say that wouldn't they?
And if they are right, no doubt we will see PE in court for libel?
Since PE has been going on about this and Goldman Sachs for 18 months how come action hasn't already been taken against PE for starting this "urban myth"??
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I don't doubt HMRC pursue soft targets in preference to hard ones.
But a tax liability of £6bn suggests profits more enormous than even Vodafone could generate.
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www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13421609
Multiply by a couple of years and add penalties and interest.
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"But a tax liability of £6bn suggests profits more enormous than even Vodafone could generate"
Maybe (because I am only going on what has been said in PE), but here are some figures and quotes (largely from wikipedia so maybe take with a pinch of salt??)
" It is the world's largest mobile telecommunications company measured by revenues and the world's second-largest measured by subscribers (behind China Mobile), with around 341 million proportionate subscribers as of November 2010.[3][4][5]
Vodafone owns and operates networks in over 30 countries and has partner networks in over 40 additional countries.[6] It owns 45% of Verizon Wireless, the largest mobile telecommunications company in the United States measured by subscribers.[7][8]
"In September 2010, an investigation by Private Eye magazine revealed certain details of Vodafone's tax avoidance activities. It was reported that Vodafone routed the acquisition of Mannesmann through a Luxembourg subsidiary, set up to avoid paying tax on the deal, and continued to place its profits in Luxembourg. Following a long legal struggle with HMRC (during which a senior HMRC official, John Connors, switched sides to become head of tax at Vodafone), it was eventually agreed that Vodafone would pay £1.25bn related to the acquisition. Based on Vodafone's accounts, experts have estimated the potential tax bill written off as a result of the negotiations was over £6bn.[52]
www.private-eye.co.uk/sections.php?section_link=in_the_back&issue=1273
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/8875360/Taxman-accused-of-letting-Vodafone-off-8-billion.html
www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/news/article-1704527/Taxman-let-Vodafone-off-6bn-bill.html
www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/nov/14/vodafone-tax-evasion-revenue-customs
Profits in 2010 were £8.7 billion.
Deal with HMRC goes back 11 years to 2001.
If they had to pay interest and fines like you and I if we failed to pay taxes, £10 billion is not totally unbelievable.
But then what do I know?
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"Propagating and inflating an urban myth."
From the Guardian
"HMRC's press office dismisses the £6bn tax write-off as an "urban myth". But the Eye's calculations on the lost income are based on publicly available accounts which detail the vast wealth of Vodafone's Luxembourg subsidiary. They add in the lost income that comes from the Revenue allowing Vodafone to continue with other tax-reducing wheezes. The Revenue, by contrast, offers questioners nothing beyond bluster and unsubstantiated assertion."
www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/nov/14/vodafone-tax-evasion-revenue-customs
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PE can bluster as much as they like, but if the IR could recover these taxes from Vodafone, they would. Clearly they cant. I would suggest that the tax lawyers at the IR and Vodafone know more about tax than some piddly back street scandal rag.
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" piddly back street scandal rag"
Yes, it's much less reliable than the Main Street newspapers run by such as Murdoch, Dirty Desmond, the Barclay brothers, that dodgy Russian bloke etc.
And the whole point is that the head of HMRC did a deal with Vodafone without consulting his lawyers and therefore let Vodafone off the hook.
What's IR?
Last edited by: PhilW on Thu 19 Jan 12 at 22:52
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IR - Inland Revenue, or more correctly Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC).
"HMRC was formed by the merger of the Inland Revenue and Her Majesty's Customs and Excise which took effect on 18 April 2005." (Wikipedia)
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>> " piddly back street scandal rag"
>> Yes, it's much less reliable than the Main Street newspapers run by such as Murdoch,
>> Dirty Desmond, the Barclay brothers, that dodgy Russian bloke etc.
>>
>> And the whole point is that the head of HMRC did a deal with Vodafone
>> without consulting his lawyers and therefore let Vodafone off the hook.
>> What's IR?
I would suggest the Barclay brothers have some of the best tax lawyers know to man
Certainly more than the piddly back street PE
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> HMRC did a deal with Vodafone without consulting his lawyers and therefore let Vodafone off the hook. >>
Lawyers had been involved through a long and costly case. The gist of the problem, as summarised from one stage of the court proceedings (note my emphasis added in bold in the last sentence):
"Vodafone has won a key legal battle against the UK tax authority, HM Revenue and Customs, in a judgment that has cast major doubt on the compatibility of the UK's controlled foreign companies (CFC) regime with European Union law.
Mr Justice Edward Evans-Lombe ruled in the High Court on 4th July that Vodafone does not have to pay UK corporation tax on income attributed to its Luxembourg holding company Vodafone Investments Luxembourg Sarl (VIL). Consequently, he ordered HMRC to shut an ongoing tax inquiry into Vodafone's tax for the year to March 2001.
Vodafone has estimated that the court victory has saved it more than GBP2bn (USD4bn) in tax and interest that it might have been ordered to pay had the judgment gone against the company. However, the ruling also has ramifications that go much wider than Vodafone's corporate arrangements, and several UK-based multinationals with subsidiaries in favourable EU tax jurisdictions such as Ireland, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, who are said to be under a similar type of scrutiny from HMRC, are likely to be breathing a sigh of relief as a result.
The case dates back to 2002 after Vodafone set up VIL to dispose of its shares in the German telecommunications group Mannesman, which it acquired in 2000. VIL is also used to circulate cash and profits around the group and as a vehicle to fund other acquisitions.
HMRC argues that under the UK CFC rules, it has the right to tax the difference between rate a subsidiary pays in a low tax jurisdiction overseas and the rate it would have paid on that income in the UK - a principle that it attempted to apply in the Vodafone case.
However, Justice Evans-Lombe referred back to a precedent set in 2006 by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in a case involving Cadbury-Scweppes, which said that the UK CFC rules were incompatible with EU law because they were too restrictive and should only be applied in cases where companies set up artificial arrangements aimed solely at avoiding tax.
While the UK Treasury moved to amend CFC regulations in the wake of the Cadbury-Schweppes ruling, Justice Evans-Lombe argued that these amendments have not gone far enough to address their incompatibility with EU law, and he urged the government to revisit the legislation.
"In my judgement, the CFC legislation must be disapplied so that, pending amending legislation or executive action, no charge can be imposed on a company such as Vodafone under the CFC legislation," he said, going on to add that:
"It seems to me that all UK taxpayers, including Vodafone, were and are entitled to be told by legislation, of which the meaning is plain, what the tax consequences for them will be if they decide to incorporate a controlled foreign company in a (EU) member state."
Last edited by: John H on Fri 20 Jan 12 at 08:58
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So, if what Private eye wrote is libellous, why haven't Vodafone sued?
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Probably want the whole thing to be forgotten.
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...So, if what Private eye wrote is libellous, why haven't Vodafone sued?...
At one time, it was not possible for a company to sue for libel.
It is now, but it still remains difficult.
Some organisations, such as local authorities and government entities cannot sue for libel.
Although worth bearing in mind individual employees can.
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Another one in the eye for Private Eye:
Today's news:
timworstall.com/2012/01/20/vodafone-wins-indian-tax-case/
" Vodafone has won a landmark tax dispute in India over its $11bn acquisition of a 67pc stake in Hutchison Whampoa’s Indian mobile unit, which later became Vodafone Essar.
Another Private Eye/Ritchie nonsense ground into the dust.
There was no tax evasion, there was no tax avoidance. This is the Supreme Court we’re talking about, the arbiter of what actually is the law in that land.
This was entire and pure tax compliance, every rupee that Vodafone should have paid in tax Vodafone did pay in tax.
I look forward to this judgement being popularised by those who first raised it, don’t you? "
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timworstall.com/2011/11/08/so-its-8-billion-for-vodafone-now-is-it/
" So it’s £8 billion for Vodafone now, is it? The numbers bandied about just seem to grow: ... "
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Useful anti-phishing tip I don't think I've seen in this thread: if there's a link in the email, roll your mouse over it to see where it will take you.
Clearly, nothing genuine from HMRC or your bank will ask you to click a link, but I get messages through LinkedIn from recruiters - whose names I wouldn't expect to know. Some of these are genuine, and a click on the link takes me to the message itself, but others are fakes from phishers. The rollover method lets me tell them apart.
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That is a PR statement for Vodafone. There's none so blind as those who will not see. It's obvious that there is plenty of tax avoidance going on, but no proven tax evasion.
If they weren't putting a lot of effort into avoiding tax, they wouldn't be embroiled in so much litigation.
As for piddly PE, I put a lot more trust in it than the DT, Mail, Express, or anything owned by NI.
Last edited by: Manatee on Fri 20 Jan 12 at 10:51
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>> It's obvious that there is plenty of tax avoidance going on, but no proven tax evasion. >>
It is implied that HMRC were worried that the Treasury would lose even more if the Vodafone case went to the Supreme Court:
"Vodafone won at the Special Commissioners, in the High Court, the Court of Appeal said, weeeelllll, it’s just vaguely possible that CFC does apply if it was all only being done for tax dodging purposes. What we would really like of course is a Supreme Court or EU court judgement on the point. However, at this point HMRC decided to settle. For, and this is implied, not absolutely known, HMRC were worried that they might actually lose at that top level. And there’s another 100 or so companies using similar structures. With the Court of Appeal ruling HMRC might be able to get some tax out of some of them. Lose at the next stage and they would get nothing out of any of them."
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Reviving this old thread to link to an amusing interlude to one of David Hartnett's retirement dinners.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=3w4tcIsaInE
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Tax refund. - Stuu
