Inland Revenue scam alert

With the automation of services becoming more popular, it is important to stay vigilant when it comes to potential scams. Scammers are becoming savvier with fraudulent emails and letters looking more legitimate, so daily caution when it comes to all correspondence is advised.

Scam attempts pretending to be Inland Revenue are common so it is important to not click on any links in an email unless you’re certain the correspondence is legitimate. Inland Revenue advises some tell-tale signs of a scam may include:

• The scammer might demand money. They might want to be paid in unusual ways such as gift cards (for example, iTunes cards), bitcoins or money transfer systems
• The scammer may pressure you to make a decision or do something quickly
• They might ask for passwords to your online accounts. Legitimate organisations will never ask for passwords
• A scammer may ask for your bank account details. Inland Revenue will never ask you to email or text them this information – they will always ask you to supply this through myIR
• Scammers often give website or email addresses that are wrong but look almost right. For example, they might send you to ird.co.nz, ird.qovt.nz or ird.gov.nz, instead of the correct ird.govt.nz
• The email or text might be badly worded or formatted.

If you get an email that you think might be a scam, use your mouse to hover over a link without clicking. This will let you see if the website address they want to send you to is accurate and relevant to the email you received. When in doubt, confirm the source yourself.

If you receive correspondence from Inland Revenue you believe to be spam, do not click any links, and let Inland Revenue know by contacting them here. You can also check your details by logging into your online myIR account.

Further information regarding scams can be found on the Inland Revenue website.

Note Inland Revenue will commence phone calls and SMS messaging from 1 June 2021 to contact taxpayers that have outstanding arrears in the following circumstances:

• The debt is more than 60 days overdue, and
• The amount of the debt is between $200 – $10,000, and
• The debt is assessed (i.e not missed provisional tax instalments), and
• The client account is active, and
• There is no active tax pooling indicator on the client’s account.

These will be direct messages to the taxpayers regardless of whether they are linked to a tax agent.

If you have any questions on Inland Revenue scams, please contact your Nexia advisor.