Finance

New SARS scam doing the rounds – here’s what to look out for

Staff Writer

 ·24 May 2023

The South African Revenue Service (SARS) has warned taxpayers of a new scam trying to defraud people.

According to the tax authority, the latest scam is an email seemingly from a Gauteng.gov.za email address with the subject title ‘Urgent letter from SARS attached for your attention’.

The scam is a PDF with a button to click called ‘View account in arrears’.

SARS has warned taxpayers not to click on any suspicious links.

If you hover your mouse over the link, it is clear that the link is not legit, said SARS.

Scams attempting to defraud taxpayers have run rampant. SARS has reported a total 332 scams trying to exploit SARS’s name.

SARS said to report or to get more information on scams, send an email to [email protected] or call the Fraud and Anti-Corruption Hotline on 080 000 2870. To see all current SARS surveys, emails and SMSs, click here.

The taxman has provided the following advice as to what to keep an eye out for:

• Do not open or respond to emails from unknown sources.
• Beware of emails that ask for personal, tax, banking and eFiling details (login credentials, passwords, pins, credit/debit card information, etc.).
• SARS will never request your banking details in any communication that you receive via post, email, or SMS. However, for the purpose of telephonic engagement and authentication purposes, SARS will verify your personal details. Importantly, SARS will not send you any hyperlinks to other websites – even those of banks.
• Beware of false SMSs.
• SARS does not send *.htm or *.html attachments.
• SARS will never ask for your credit card details.

For taxpayers to legitimately check if they are in arrears or not, they can contact the institution and request account-related queries, including balance statements or a statement of account, by sending an SMS to SARS at 47277.

Send the following wording to 47277: Balance (Space) ID number/Passport number

See an example of the scam below:

Read: 12 extra taxes you pay on everything you buy in South Africa