Firstly, the email is littered with a series of spelling errors throughout, which is often seen as a tell-tale warning of scam correspondence.
In addition, there is no dedicated COVID-19 tax refund or rebate programme set up by the government at present.
Official correspondence is also likely to contain a person’s name, addressing them in the first line, which this email does not.
Finally, HMRC has said it will not contact customers in this way, and so correspondence such as this can be safely assumed to be a scam.
Carl Wearn, head of e-crime at cybersecurity specialist Mimecast, spoke exclusively to Express.co.uk about the matter.