How To Keep Your UTR Number Safe
Apart from the tax codes which help to tell you how you can arrive at your personal tax-free allowance and your total tax payable, the UTR number is perhaps the most important number that you will ever come across if you are a taxpayer in the United Kingdom.
For this reason, it is critical that you keep it in a very safe way so that no one with ulterior motives may access to it and ultimately gain some extremely confidential and potential damaging information from the post office.
In this article, we are going to look at three ways in which you can keep your UTR number safe.
Store Your Tax Documents Properly The first thing that you should do if at all you would like to keep your number safe is to make sure that all your tax documents are stored under lock and key.
This does not mean that you should get paranoid and start treating everyone around you when it comes to your tax details.
It just means that storing them in an enclosed place will ensure that they do not get scattered within and without the house where some crook might chance upon it.
Shred The Documents When Doing Away With Them Another thing that you must never fail to do when disposing off your tax documents is to shred.
Unlike pieces of old newspapers and torn pages from a high school textbook, your tax documents can easily cause your downfall if people who would like to bring you down chance upon them.
If on the other hand you simply throw your documents away, you will definitely be risking.
Never Give Your UTR On Phone Another way of keeping you UTR number safely is to ensure that you never give it on your phone.
This is because you never know who is listening when you are communicating with the guys at the tax office.
In fact, the HM Revenue and Customs also take the same precaution, as they will never give you out your number on phone.
Instead, they will only send it to you through your postal address.
The three precautions that have been mentioned here are extremely important as they will go a long way in ensuring that your UTR number is very safe.
However, it is critical to note that they are not exhaustive, and it might need you to take additional precautions depending on your unique circumstances.