Katlego Sekhu
As we have officially entered the tax season, many South Africans will log onto the SARS eFiling website or visit their closest branch to complete their tax returns.
While this is an extremely busy time for the South African Revenue Service (SARS), scammers are also hard at work. Manie van Schalkwyk, the CEO of the Southern African Fraud Prevention Service (SAFPS) says:
“Over the past five years, the SAFPS has noticed a growing trend of tax scams which are targeting individuals who are desperate for cash.”
Van Schalkwyk warns the public against taking a SARS auto-assessment at face value.
“SARS is increasingly gravitating towards an auto-assessment system for qualifying taxpayers. This means that SARS has already done the tax return on behalf of the individual. They then either qualify for a rebate or pay money back to SARS,” says Van Schalkwyk.
While this is legitimate, he warns that scammers have also gotten on board with this trend.
“Scammers are contacting taxpayers impersonating SARS. When targeted taxpayers log on to complete their auto-assessment, they are redirected to a proxy website where scammers will use the information they fill in on the form. The scammers will even produce a fake proof of payment document indicating that a rebate has been paid into the taxpayer’s bank account.”
Manie Van Schalkwyk, CEO of the Southern African Fraud Prevention Service joined Kaya Biz With Gugulethu Mfuphi to speak in detail about this.
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