Tax Scam Warning

Tax Scam Warning

 The ATO continues to warn the public to be aware of phone scams that circulate from time to time where fraudsters are intimidating people into paying a fake tax debt over the phone.  The aggressive scam attempts to force people to pay a fake tax debt over the phone by threatening arrest if they don’t comply.

The Assistant Commissioner of the ATO has advised that the ATO makes thousands of outbound calls to taxpayers a week, but would never contact taxpayers about a debt in this threatening manner and urges people to protect their personal details.

The general rule of the ATO is in the first instance to send an SMS or letter to remind you that a payment was due and if they don’t receive a response from this they would then call you to discuss payment.  If people receive a call from the ATO and are concerned about providing their personal information over the phone, please take the callers name and number and contact us at AAG.

People should contact the ATO on 1800 008 540 if they think they may have fallen victim to a phone scam.

For more information and examples of recent scams visit the ATO website or scamwatch.gov.au.