In the whole of 2012, the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) received 26,000 reports of scam emails related to tax. In the first quarter of this year, the number was 11,000 — three times as many as this time last year.
Tax scam emails are often designed for identity theft: victims are lured into supplying personal details in return for promises of a non-existent return. The ATO’s advice is simple: bin those emails (or forward them to the ATO’s dedicated investigations unit). And never supply your tax file number casually over email or the phone.
Comments
5 responses to “ATO: Email Tax Scams Have Tripled In A Year”
Be careful, I have been even received the call from and Indian person saying I had a refund, and just need to give him some details.
His accent was very thick, and he got quite aggressive about giving me my “refund” when I started asking his name, office he worked at, and staff number (I’m not sure if this even exists).
Be careful guys!
As an Accountant. Same advice. Bin.
ATO will never take details over the phone and will always post out documents to your notified address. In this next year of lodgements ie 2012/2013 ATO are promising to lock in your bank details from your income tax return and pay to this from there.
Your standard response should be ” speak to my tax agent” if you dont have one “put in in the mail to me”
The biggest problem I actually have is that the ATO outsources its debt collection. So you end up with some tosser calling you saying ” please give all this sensitive information to me so I can confirm that I am speaking to the right person and then I will demand you pay”
Again your standard response should be ” I can not confirm that I am speaking with an ATO officer – Unless you can tell me what a specific piece of information is ie My gross taxable income from 2012 return is I am going to hang up on you and call the ATO direct ” Get the number from Whitepages etc.
The ATO needs to understand that the PROOF of ID goes both ways. You need to understand WHO you are talking to
Just looked at the above scam email
Its supposed to be from the ATO but is signed off by ASIC two completely different government bodies. HA HA. ASIC is the entity that looks after public and private companies. Nothing to do with taxation
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