Unexpected request to confirm tax residency - Halifax

chrismac1

Return address is Tax compliance Service Centre, PO box 7082, Willenhall, WV1 9AD.

Scam. Genuine FATCA disclosures normally have to be taken in to your bank branch.

JESSY

My Halifax branch says it is genuine. The Leeds address is the Halifax Mortgage Service.
The other one is in Wolverhampton.Will makr further checks.

MDudley

I got similar letter from Lloyds asking me where was I resident for tax purposes despite them knowing and deducting tax from my current account interest of about £12 per month! I've had account for over 55 years and annually get a tax deduction certificate from them. Never ever been out of UK! Spent hours on phone to them. They couldn't explain very much but sensing I was annoyed they paid £20 compensation into my account to try to shut me up. You should ring Mr Hamza on 0800 072 3572. Try it! At least they'll be paying for the call!

Stephen1973

I received this letter. All of the alarm bells relating it to be a scam started going off in my head. So. I looked on this forum and found a host of other victims. That was yesterday.

Today I phoned the number and got through straight away. The guy at the end of the line (the 0345 number) bumbled off a load of legal jargon and reasons why I had to mail them the form. That was after I passed security - essentially my DOB and postcode...Nothing else Halifax related. I kept asking him the same questions (the ones we're all having) and he kept to his mantra. I rang off telling him I'd be asking Halifax directly.

I spoke to a girl at Halifax on the phone. Went through security and then explained the situation. She said I was right to report it but despite telling me that the 0345 number wasn't an "active Halifax" number, she went away for a few moments then came back telling me the letter was genuine and I had to respond. She said vaguely that it was tax related and that I should call HMRC on a number she gave me if I had any queries.

I called HMRC. The lady there said that if it looked bogus or Halifax had not acknowledged the number as genuine I should not send the form back. She said that HMRC were not investigating me for tax reasons as things stood.

I called Halifax back and explained everything from call 1 and call 2. Sometimes with these organisations it's down to the intellect of the person who randomly receives your call as to whether you get the service you require or not. The second Halifax girl put me on hold for a while as she contacted her manager. She then came back and explained that everything from the forms to the people in Willenhall and the dodgy sounding non-Halifax phone number were all real and that I had to comply. It is apparently something to do with a US / UK reciprocal information agreement to which they are tied.

I went out for a walk with my kid in her pram down to the post box in order to send the completed form. I am British. I've been to the States on holiday 3 times, never using my Halifax accounts on their soil and I've lived in two other EU member states over ten years ago earning peanuts for TEFL work. I live and work in my country of origin, ENGLAND, UK.

As I walked to the post box I mulled all of this over. I concluded that the Yanks have no right to request my NI number. I'm not American and I'm not subject to their laws. I diverted to the swings and my kid had a nice half hour swaying back n forth in the wind. I still have the sealed envelope. I will keep tabs on this forum for a wee while and see later what I want to do about the letter...To send or not to send, that is the question....

JESSY

Stephen1973 Thanks for that post I was going to make the exact phone calls today but do not need to waste my time now. My Halifax branch said it was genuine. I am also undecided whether to return the form or not. I will anyway write a letter of complaint to the Halifax Leeds address. Mr Robinson, Director of Savings, as to why it was not fully explained who we would be sending the form back to, as it is not the Halifax address. Still have time to get a response before the May deadline. Hope others may do the same.

badmemory

I THINK I have made a decision on what to do. I will NOT be posting the form to some company/address that no-one has ever heard of. I will (or at least I think I will) be taking it into the Halifax. The form purports to come from them. The other address is not on the form. If they choose to pass the form on to these other people because they are acting as their agents, then so be it.

Should we be considering a DPA complaint if it is genuine? Or even if it isn't?

RobertJPA

yes, I think I will also give mine directly to my local Halifax, on 17th of May, and make a formal complaint.

Chocklit54

***Update 9th May 2016.

I got a call back from a senior Halifax person who explained the tax residency request letters are genuine and apologised for the lack of response to my letter.

Basically the country of residency and National Insurance number information required is to comply with requests from HMRC as a result of the new Data Sharing rules from 1st July 2014.

Apparently there are a few triggers for receiving one of these letters and they are for the Halifax to show compliance to the new rules. When I pointed out that Halifax local branch staff where unable to confirm it wasn't a scam the Halifax person implied that it was probably due to slow information filtering down to branches & staff hadn't remembered there would be such letters sent out.

The whole episode has been unnecessarily stressful and a pretty poor show on the part of Halifax. They need to improve their communication skills.

..........................................

There has been no reply from Philip Robinson (sent letter 4 weeks ago).
This morning I spoke to an Ernst & Young call centre assistant who, though attempting to be helpful, was unable to confirm who I would be reported to if I failed to return the form.
I explained the Halifax already has all the information they are requesting.
Have escalated the call upwards as a complaint and I am hoping for a call back today.
This has been a stressful exercise and I can't seem to get anyone to take me seriously about personal information security and identity protection....something we are all told to be careful about.

Has anyone else got anywhere with this?

..................................

Thanks to everyones submissions. I am reassured by not being the only one to receive such a letter requesting personal information.
I sent a letter to Philip Robinson, Director of Savings at Halifax yesterday, here it is:

"Dear Mr. Robinson,

I received a letter purporting to be from the Halifax requesting that I fill in a ‘Tax Residency Self-Certification for Individuals and Sole Traders’ to be returned by 17th May 2016. I was immediately suspicious of such an unexpected letter without previous communication or common knowledge of the change in tax legislation 1July 2014.

I would very much appreciate your clarification of the whole communication and I want you to confirm:-

..that the letter is genuine and not a scam. I was alerted by an incomplete address compared to all other communications I receive from the Halifax, the logo is a darker blue than usual and your ‘grainy’ signature has obviously been scanned and squashed.

..which account the letter and form refer to. There is no reference to a specific account yet the Tax Residency form Part 3 ii. states “of the country in which THIS account is maintained”.

..that the business reply envelope is a genuine address. There is no reference to the Halifax.

..(if genuine), how to fill in part 2 of the Tax Residency self-certification form. It implies I have lived abroad for periods of time. There are no meaningful dates I could state as I have always lived in the UK since birth. I have never lived or worked outside of the UK and only have UK savings accounts.

..(if genuine) that there is a legal requirement under UK law to fill in the form and what the consequences would be for not returning the information.

The Halifax already has all the information requested on the form, that is, Name, Address, Date of Birth, National Insurance number (as I have been registered R85 for savings without tax deducted since 2012). I am cautious about posting private and sensitive details through the post to an unknown address. The staff in my local Halifax branch were unable to establish the letter was genuine and there was no record on your computer system that such a letter had been sent to me.

The letter also contained the information sheets, ‘Things you may want to ask’, ‘Tax Residency Definitions of terms used’ and HMRC ‘Automatic Exchange of Info for account holders’, therefore, I am aware of the context in which such a communication may have been sent.

Thank you for your kind attention to this important issue. I look forward to your reply."

glider3560

chrismac1 wrote: »

Genuine FATCA disclosures normally have to be taken in to your bank branch.

Are you sure? All new account opening forms (at all banks and building societies) have included this declaration for several years. These can be made by post or online.

Even opening an account in Luxembourg last week (consisting of 16 pages of form to complete), the FATCA declaration was done on a sheet on paper by post.

waywardj

It may be that due to the shear number of forms they will be having to process, Lloyds Banking Group (including the Halifax) may have outsourced the task to a third party business support company. This could explain the lack specific account details, the unrecognised 0345 number, the absence of a Lloyds or Halifax name on the return postal address.


None of which of course is an acceptable excuse for the ill thought out way in which this is being handled.