{"id":875922,"date":"2026-09-17T15:35:39","date_gmt":"2026-09-17T13:35:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=875922"},"modified":"2026-09-17T15:35:42","modified_gmt":"2026-09-17T13:35:42","slug":"warning-for-taxpayers-about-the-2026-filing-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/banking\/875922\/warning-for-taxpayers-about-the-2026-filing-season\/","title":{"rendered":"Warning for taxpayers about the 2026 filing season"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Tax experts are advising taxpayers to stay alert as the tax filing deadline on October 23 approaches, due to a rise in phishing scams and fake eFiling websites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are fewer than six weeks remaining before the filing deadline for non-provisional individual taxpayers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The South African Revenue Service (SARS) has urged taxpayers not to leave filing their taxes until the last minute.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the deadline in sight, many South Africans are prioritising their outstanding tax returns, creating significant pressure as they avoid trouble with SARS.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During this stressful filing season, Kaspersky has warned that sophisticated scammers are taking advantage of taxpayers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cybersecurity and digital privacy company Kaspersky has recently identified phishing websites that imitate SARS eFiling and malicious email attachments disguised as tax-related documents. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group said that a fake eFiling page asks victims for their username, password and phone number, while another uses what appears to be an Adobe PDF sign-in screen to request email credentials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kaspersky researchers have also picked up attachments with filenames such as \u201cTax Returns Of RXX, XXX.XXX<\/em>\u201d and \u201cFinal_Assessment_Notification-2026-0X-0X.pdf<\/em>\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The emails often use phrases such as \u201cRefund due\u201d or \u201cSARS letter of demand,\u201d prompting recipients to open the file without verifying its source.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBy this point in the tax season, people are used to receiving messages about returns, assessments and refunds, so an email like this may not immediately look out of place,\u201d said Kaspersky General Manager for Sub-Saharan Africa, Chris Norton.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat is what scammers rely on. The closer we get to the deadline, the easier it is to act quickly because you think you are dealing with something that needs your attention.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The cybersecurity firm said that the use of artificial intelligence (AI) has made it much harder for taxpayers to discern what is real and what is fake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Artificial intelligence makes it harder to identify a scam<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a>
Kaspersky General Manager for Sub-Saharan Africa, Chris Norton<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Earlier this year, SARS issued a warning about scammers using AI to create professional-looking email templates that are increasingly difficult to identify as fraudulent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This warning came in response to a new wave of SMS and email scams that claimed taxpayers were owed refunds and directed them to fake websites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a result, some of the traditional visual cues that indicated a scam, such as awkward wording or poorly designed correspondence, are no longer effective. A message can appear professional and still be fraudulent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is another risk related to AI during tax season. Taxpayers may use chatbots or other AI tools to help them understand their tax returns or to address tax-related questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kaspersky warned that tax documents contain sensitive personal and financial information and that AI-generated responses can contain errors. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So uploading tax records, identification documents, banking information, or other confidential data to an AI service can lead to unnecessary exposure of this sensitive information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAI can make complicated information easier to work through, but taxpayers should be careful about the information they provide to an external service,\u201d said Norton.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He highlighted that a tax return provides a comprehensive overview of a person’s financial and personal life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Norton said that sensitive records should not be integrated into public AI tools, and critical tax information must be verified through trusted sources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The firm urged taxpayers to protect themselves by eliminating urgency in any tax-related interactions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead of clicking on a link from an unexpected tax message, it’s safer to access SARS eFiling or the MobiApp directly to verify whether the communication is legitimate. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

SARS has stated that it will never ask for passwords, one-time PINs, banking PINs, or eFiling login credentials via email, SMS, social media, or telephone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe closer the deadline gets, the more tempting it can be to deal with a tax message immediately. Taking a few minutes to verify it through an official channel can be the difference between completing your return successfully and handing valuable information to a scammer,\u201d said Norton.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Example of a SARS phishing scam<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a>
Source: Daily Investor<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Experts have warned taxpayers to remain cautious amid heightened phishing scams and fake eFiling sites.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":127,"featured_media":674015,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"posted","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"2100579536953872588","_sma_facebook_post_id":"191437357620492_2208208199999579","_sma_instagram_post_id":"18105033641223116","_sma_x_attempts":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[961],"tags":[1446,22299,3246,23696],"class_list":["post-875922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-banking","tag-kaspersky","tag-phishing-scam","tag-sars","tag-sars-efiling"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/875922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/127"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=875922"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/875922\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":875940,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/875922\/revisions\/875940"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/674015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=875922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=875922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=875922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}