BEWARE OF INCOME TAX REFUND THROUGH HOAX AND JUNK MAILS

[C.A. DEV KUMAR KOTHARI]

HOAX AND JUNK MAILS:

Some hoax mails are being circulated by unknown persons with some ulterior motives like data theft, knowing bank account information, credit card information etc. Assessees must be careful in opening and reading the mail and should avoid clicking any link for any other website or link for forms for refund of tax etc.

Example of email received by an assessee:

The following is an example of email received by a taxpayer:

From: Income Tax Department of Indiakxlzml@accounts.net /account@orange.fr

Subject: Income Tax Department of India - Tax Refund (5416533) 820.50 Rs

"Dear Income Tax Department of India customer,

After the last annual calculation of your fiscal activity we have determined that you are eligible to receive a tax refund of 820.50 Rupees.

Please submit the tax refund form and allow us 3-5 business days in order to process it.

A refund can be delayed for a variety of reasons. For example submitting invalid records or applying after the deadline.

To access the form for your tax refund, please Click Here.

NOTE!

For security reasons, we will record your ip-address and date.

Thank you,

Income Tax Department of India Online Department."

From reading of the above information itself doubt and suspicion arises because of funny type of email ids used, and funny language used including  word "customer", last annual calculation of your fiscal activity. tax refund form , Income Tax Department of India Online Department." etc.  All these words causes suspicion and doubts about credential of email.

We know that there is no such form for tax refund, therefore, it is just imaginary of the circulator of the emails.

Urgency is shown:

In the email circulated urgency is shown by use of words  '….  submitting invalid records or applying after the deadline', as possible reason for denial of refund. This should not cause a panic to the receiver of the email.

Click here-  to avoid damages from a click anti virus software is necessary:

The attachments provided in links may be harmful to computer. If there is no antivirus software or it is not up to date or it is nor fully functional, the harmful links can open and cause data theft, data loss, crashing of hard disk of computer etc. when antivirus software is powerful, such links will not be allowed to be opened. 

Denial from income tax department:

The income tax department has also denied such emails from the department. As per a commentary on www.taxmanagementindia.com the denials is on the following lines:

"No mails for refunds issued from income tax department

Information has been received from several quarters that people are receiving electronic mails informing them of their income-tax refunds and seeking their credit card details. The e-mail is sent from the following or similar mailing addresses.

or cvhfus@accounts.net

It is clarified that the Income Tax Department does not send e-mails regarding refunds and does not seek any information regarding credit cards of taxpayers.

Taxpayers are, therefore, cautioned that they should not respond to such mails and if they do so it would be at their risk and responsibility."

Different email id:

Thus, we find four email ids two in email received by an assessee and two as mentioned in the TMI commentary by the income-tax department. There can be many more such email id's in circulation so beware of all such doubtful email ids.

Antivirus software:

Antivirus software must be updated and should be tuned to detect spam mails, junk mails , suspicious mails etc. and also should not allow to open doubtful links and attachments. Consut your software advisor in this regard urgently.

Beware of suspicious emails and do not act on them:

So better beware and careful of such emails. Do not get panicked and respond to such emails. You can rely on The income-tax department  for refund though it may be delayed or it may be cleared only after the department send an advice to SBI for clearing demand draft issued by SBI itself but you will get refund. May be that one or two times even the demand draft issued by  manager SBI, may returned unpaid for want of advice, but once you are found eligible for a refund, it will be surely paid to you.

Further streamlining of refunds:

The Income-tax department should endeavor to send refund through ECS or draft as early as possible to reduce burden of interest payable on refund. In payment of interest honesty should be shown and there should not be delay in actual refund and technical refund on record. Draft issued by banker for refunds should not be returned un-paid for want of advice or any other reasons. When a bankers cheque or demand draft (issued for refund of tax)  is returned unpaid one really get shocked as happened in some cases known to the author when demand draft issued by manager SBI were returned unpaid for reason "no advice".  When other cheques of crores of rupees are honored based on signature verification, there is no reason to keep the system of advice for refund of tax, particularly when refund is by way of a demand draft issued by bank manager.

Quick refund of tax will also ensure that fraudulent people are not in a position to induce taxpayers to arrange for refunds through hoax/ junk emails as illustrated above.