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As tax time comes into focus so does the increase in fraudulent actors looking to catch individuals out, with almost 20,000 scams already reported.
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Government warns of tax time scams
07 June 2023
•
9 minute read
The federal government is warning taxpayers to be aware of the possible scammers looking to catch out unaware individuals this tax time.
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Minister for Financial Services Stephen Jones said tax time is a season that sees fraudulent actors increase their activity.
“The government expects to see heightened scam activity and new tax scams being circulated in the lead up and during tax time,” said Mr Jones.
“Impersonation scams are the most commonly seen at tax time, scammers will impersonate the ATO contacting individuals via a link to a fake myGov login page.”
“Ahead of tax time, we are warning the community about the common tricks of tax scammers.”
Mr Jones said in 2021–22 the ATO received over 20,000 scam reports from taxpayers and in 2022–23 it had already received 19,843 reports before even reaching the most popular time closer to tax returns being due.
The government said possible tactics scammers would use included posing as the ATO on social media pretending to offer help with tax and super questions but instead collecting personal information.
Another method fraudulent actors would employ was luring unsuspecting people by impersonating the ATO with the offer of a refund to try and keep them engaged and collect as much personal information and data as they could.
Mr Jones said scammers would also try to use all types of methods to contact individuals including phone calls, private messages on social media, emails or texts, but told the public the ATO would never send a link to get them to login to their online services or ask them to provide personal information via social media, email or text.
To stay protected from fraudulent actors, Mr Jones advised the public to report any suspicious contact claiming to be from the ATO to
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