ERMELO – The South African Revenue Service (SARS) said it was aware of a number of incidents in which fraudulent or unauthorised changes of tax practitioners and/or taxpayers’ eFiling profiles have been made with the sole intention to defraud SARS and affected taxpayers.

“These fraudulent activities are carried out by individuals who gain access to eFiling profiles through phishing or other nefarious scams to change a legitimate taxpayer’s bank details to divert refunds,” SARS stated in a media release.

“These individuals also submit fraudulent tax returns to generate refunds.”

SARS stated it takes all necessary steps to mitigate security breaches of its information systems, and that there was no evidence of its systems being hacked.

Several changes were implemented to augment the integrity of the SARS systems.

These include a process to advise tax practitioners when their access to taxpayer/client profiles are removed as well as an enhanced personal income tax and eFiling registration process, among others.

These were done to make it difficult for criminal elements to obtain sensitive information and then perpetrate fraud.

“To safeguard eFiling profiles, tax practitioners are urged to ensure that profile credentials are not shared within their practices or companies. All eFiling user access within practices or companies must be routinely reviewed and where required, employee access should be revoked, particularly when an employee leaves the practice or company,” the media release read.

The public is urged to always be alert for phishing scams that call for the sharing of sensitive identity and banking details. Incidents of fraudulent or unauthorised changes of eFiling profiles can be reported to the SARS Anti-corruption and Fraud Hotline on 0800 00 2870.

Taxpayers and tax practitioners are urged not to use social media platforms, such as Facebook, to report such incidents or disclose their sensitive information.

SARS Commissioner Mr Edward Kieswetter sent a strong message to fraudsters engaged in this criminal enterprise of swindling honest taxpayers.

“Let me leave no one in doubt about SARS’ capacity and capability to deal a massive blow to those hell-bent on these criminal activities. Working with other law enforcement agencies, SARS will leave no stone unturned to hunt and find these criminals. This is no idle threat, be warned.”

For further information, contact sarsmedia@sars.gov.za.