Beware of Phishing emails
from fake Income Tax Dept. Ids
By Mr. Amarpal Chadha, EY
India
Mr. Akshay got an e-mail to
complete his return of income by authenticating his bank account details so
that a refund of Rs. 19,870 could be credited to him in a week’s time.
He happily proceeded to the link
and provided details of his bank account to process the refund.
Within minutes, he got a
confirmation message that the refund due to him would be processed within 7
days.
Next day, he discussed the e-mail
and shared his happiness with his tax consultant.
The tax consultant asked him, “Did
the notice mention your PAN and assessment year? How did you confirm the refund
amount?”
Mr. Akshay was unsure and shared
the e-mail with him.
The e-mail had come from
donotreply@incometaxindiafiling.gov.in, which was a spoofed e-mail id. His
consultant pointed out that the letter ‘e’ is missing in the e-mail id and
informed him that that it indeed was a fake e-mail id. Mr. Akshay was in a
state of shock.
This is not a one-off incident.
There have been various cases reported across the country of taxpayers
receiving such fake e-mails. These e-mails are more common during the tax
return filing time as taxpayers await communication from the income tax
department. If you are a tax payer who has received such an e-mail, be careful
as it may be a phishing e-mail which would re-direct you to another website
seeking your financial details like bank account number and other related
details.
These kind of e-mails are
camouflaged in a manner that one feels that it has come from an authentic
e-mail id. The e-mail id would resemble the ids used by CPC / income tax department. A wrong step could
lead to compromising one’s personal details and the person eventually becomes a
victim of online fraud.
One could apply some basic checks
before responding to such e-mails: Impromptu response should be avoided for
electronic notices.
Always cross-check the authenticity
of the e-mail id from which you have received the e-mail.
The I-T department sends e-mail
from the ids such as <donotreply@incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in>,
<intimations@cpc.gov.in>,<campaign@cpc.gov.in>. There are e-mails
widely in circulation from spoofed e-mail ids which almost resemble the generic
ids of the tax department.
Do remember that the income tax
department would not use private service providers’ e-mail ids like Gmail,
Yahoo etc. Any e-mail from personal e-mail IDs and private service providers
should be ignored. Before responding to the notices, please refer to details
appearing on the income tax portal.
Any demand against your PAN appears
on income tax portal and the amount mentioned in a notice can be easily
cross-checked.
Do corroborate the details
mentioned in the notice with the return of income filed by you in the earlier
years.
Further, after e-filing, most of
the services or requests can be raised online on the income tax portal itself.
Rather than going through the link mentioned in the e-mail, you may
independently open the authentic website, which is a user friendly platform,
<http://www.incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in>
and check all the pending actions against your PAN.
Being vigilant and being aware of
current developments is the key to tackle such notices. This could save you
from being a victim of new age e-frauds, so think before you respond.
The author is tax partner &
India mobility leader, EY India. Inputs from Alfred Rodrigues, senior tax
professional, EY. Views expressed are personal
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