Tax scams on the rise, how to spot them

Australian inboxes have this week been flooded with emails claiming to be from the Australian Tax Office, claiming changes are afoot for tax rules. These are fake, however, and here’s how to spot them.

Unlike the scam emails we normally see that are littered with spelling errors and images, these scam emails have good spelling and no images, imitating a letter that one could conceivably receiver from that tax department.

What we’ve noticed about the scam emails this week is that:

• The subject line is always “Australian Taxation Office – New rules”
• The email addresses they’re reportedly being sent from are “information@ato.gov.au”, “rules@ato.gov.au”, “admin@ato.gov.au”, “subscribe@ato.gov.au”, and “donotreply@ato.gov.au”

All feature the text:

Australian Taxation Office informs you about the changes in the rules of submitting tax report.

Please, read about the changes to Click Here.

Important to know
We do not offer cashier services for tax payments or refunds. For further information on how to pay your taxes, see How to pay.
(http://www.ato.gov.au/content.asp?doc=/content/33696.htm)

We are kindly asking you to keep to rules and terms of tax report submission to avoid penalty.

Instead of links to the ATO website in the underlined items, you’re directed to a different site, one that loads a page designed to capture your information. In fact, the site you’re taken to isn’t even in Australia, and based on our research, is run by a resident of America with no connection to the Australian Tax Office of any kind.

As for the links, we advise that you don’t click on them, unless you’re in the mood to change passwords.