SARS warning: New scam targeting eFiling taxpayers ahead of tax season

Bruce Whitfield gets the lowdown from Jean-Louis Nel, tax director at Van Huyssteens Commercial Attorneys.

The South African Revenue Service (SARS) has warned the public about a new scam targeting taxpayers who use eFiling.

It says fraudsters are posing as SARS, luring taxpayers into a trap.  Don't fall for it!

The scam uses an 'outstanding tax payment' as a hook, threatening that if you don't make this payment to the attached account number, you won't be able to file your returns for the 2024 tax season.

'SARS never provides bank account numbers. If you need to make a payment, only use the Official SARS payment channels.'

South African Revenue Service

Bruce Whitfield gets the lowdown from Jean-Louis Nel, tax director at Van Huyssteens Commercial Attorneys.

Addressing the apparent increase in these types of scams, Nel notes that in the last six months there have been more than ten different ones relating to phishing published on the dedicated link of the SARS website.

"It appears that it's becoming a more common problem in relation to VAT refunds in particular, where tax practitioners have in excess of ten company profiles where this actually emanates"

Jean-Louis Nel, Tax Director - Van Huyssteens Commercial Attorneys 

Nel points out that the amount of money paid into fraudulent bank accounts has a big knock-on effect for the fiscus.

"If I'm not mistaken, the Commissioner published the stats where he mentioned that R110 billion of fraudulent bank refunds were stopped in the past twelve months. It's a significant amount of money if one considers what the budget deficit was in the previous financial year."

Jean-Louis Nel, Tax Director - Van Huyssteens Commercial Attorneys

 While the phenomenon is quite widespread, Nel says, it is not extra-ordinary.

"It's very similar to what is happening to attorneys with respect to conveyancing matters, where there's phishing and deposits for property transfers are also paid to scamsters... and it's similar to internet banking phishing scams."

Jean-Louis Nel, Tax Director - Van Huyssteens Commercial Attorneys

How can you protect yourself from falling victim to the latest taxpayer scam?

Keep in mind that, as a general rule, SARS would never request any documents from you via email or sms, Nel says.

When SARS does issue a notification on your profile, you'll ordinarily receive an sms to say so, asking you to log on to eFiling.

"But I think most people are more afraid of SARS as opposed to the police, so when they do receive correspondence from an entity or person purporting to be SARS, they usually act and they click on links or open email attachments and provide their particulars."

"When it comes to VAT and tax refunds, there has been an issue with those refunds taking very long and.... people would log in these details, and the moment you've provided your eFiling profile details youre in trouble... You can't do anything, you have to go to SARS then."

Jean-Louis Nel, Tax Director - Van Huyssteens Commercial Attorneys

For more detail, listen to the interview audio at the top of the article