Recently I heard a worrying tale from a partner in a firm of accountants, who shall of course remain anonymous.
Apparently fraudsters had hacked into their computer network and submitted entirely bogus personal Tax Returns on behalf of actual clients of the firm. All these false Returns resulted in substantial tax repayments which were directed to bank accounts controlled by the crooks.
HMRC had spotted the frauds, although I am not sure how much money was wrongly paid to the villains.
It is a lesson to all of us not to be complacent about Trojan horses and clicking on links in dodgy emails (which is apparently what let these guys in). If we are caught out it could be hugely damaging to our firms' reputations, and result in the loss of the clients whose privacy has been violated. Also, we would be patsies in allowing the tax to be stolen from the Treasury, which is the same as if it was taken from our collective selves.
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