Tax rebate websites

Facknats

Shocked to see the sheer volume of people commenting on ads for a tax rebate website earlier.

You can fill out exactly the same information on the HMRC website without handing a fee over to a company which capitalised on the fact that the general public have the financial literacy of an amoeba can't you, or am I missing the point?

tacpot12

No, you have summarised the situation correctly. The public need to be made more aware of the number of different ways in they can be conned out of their money. MSE is one mechanism for this, but I would encourage you to mention this on other forums.

Facknats

Crikey. What a scam!

I have commented on a few of the individuals with a link to HMRC, so many appear to be very low income so feel they should really be made aware.. can't believe this stuff isn't taught in schools.

glider3560

Facknats wrote: »

can't believe this stuff isn't taught in schools.

Probably because the teachers don't understand tax either. At least all my teacher friends have no clue about tax and would happily use one of these websites.

There really ought to be specialised teachers for things like tax. Kids in school probably won't be interested, but maybe free classes for adults could be useful?

Cook_County

These scams are run by people who have no tax or accounting qualifications. Hopefully, Parliament will put a stop to these when they have the time.

csgohan4

you run the risk of identity theft too giving all your information to strangers

uknick

Not understanding finance, let alone tax, is endemic to the great majority of the UK population. And, sad to say, I include in the majority a number of accountants I used to work with.

I used to help CAB do courses covering basic finance & debt for their clients where we used to discuss why it wasn't taught at school. The general feeling was the curriculum was already full and there seemed to be no political will to include it in place of something else.

zagfles

And some trade unions point members at these sites, probably getting a backhander off them! Rather than telling members what they need to do to claim any rebates themselves.