The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) says scammers are taking advantage of tax payment deadlines to defraud unsuspecting victims.
ATO Assistant Commissioner, Karen Foat said she was concerned about the level of sophistication scammers continued to show.
“They are getting better at impersonating large organisations and ramp up in periods where people expect to hear from us, to make their threats appear more legitimate,” Ms Foat said.
“While some taxpayers will have tax payments due from November, the ATO will always let you know how much you owe and the due date when we send your notice of assessment.”
She said anyone unsure of their current tax responsibilities could check by logging into their myGov account, or by contacting the ATO or their tax agent.
“Our work to inform the community has paid off,” Ms Foat said.
“We are seeing an increase in the number of people reporting scams and a decrease in the number of people handing over money to scammers.”
However she said any money going to scammers was too much.
“So far this year, 622 people paid over $2.1 million to scammers impersonating the ATO.”
“We see these ATO impersonation scams by phone, email, SMS and even through message apps such as WhatsApp,” Ms Foat said.
“We’ve also recently spotted scammers using the card-less cash feature offered by many banks – through this feature, victims are sent codes to withdraw cash from an ATM, which they then read out to the scammer.”
She said people who received a call, email or SMS they weren’t sure of should end the call immediately or not respond.
