Cyber Security - IRD is watching out for scammers
Scammers are always about and Inland Revenue (IRD) is a regular mark, particularly around tax filing and tax payment times.
Chester Grey will lodge your completed income tax returns with IRD, and if you are using our Tax Management service, you are not likely to receive a message from IRD about your assessment and/or your tax payments, but scammers don’t know that.
As IRD have been sending out messages to over 3 million taxpayers, scammers are out there wanting to trick people into giving out personal information.
IRD have provided some helpful tips on what to watch out for:
Inland Revenue will only pay refunds directly into the bank account on record and will only ask people to log in to their myIR account by going directly to www.ird.govt.nz without using a link. It’s always safer to type in the address directly to your web browser and navigate from there.
Inland Revenue will ask for bank account details if they don’t have them, but importantly, will always ask people to provide these in a secure way – using their myIR account or through the call centre (0800 257 777).
Scammers often try to create a sense of urgency and claim the bill has to be paid immediately but the reality is that taxpayers have until February (April when you have an extension of time as part of the Tax Management service) the following year to pay an income tax bill.
Inland Revenue will never put the dollar amount of a refund in an email or text message and will not ask for your credit or debit card details in order to pay a refund. IR never ask you to reply to an email or text message to provide your bank account details.
Inland Revenue will never speak to customers threateningly.
Make sure you have two-step verification set up on your myIR account. To learn how to set up two-step verification go to IRD’s website and search for “set up two-step verification for myIR”