IR Warns Of Scams During Tax Refund Process

Inland Revenue is warning customers to be wary of scammers during the 2020 tax refund season.

Between Mid-May and July, IR automatically processes and pays out tax refunds. It is also when scammers may try to scam you.

This year IR will send around 2.5 million automatically assessed tax refund notices during that time, using both customer’s myIR accounts and through the post. These will be sent out in daily batches, Monday to Friday, between mid-May and the end of July.

Scammers know this as well and target this time of the tax year to try to rip people off and gain access to bank accounts and other personal information.

Here’s what IR will and won’t do when we send out the tax assessment notices.

Inland Revenue absolutely will let people know if they have a refund by sending an income tax assessment.

We will only pay funds directly in to the bank account we have on record and we will ask people to log in to their myIR account from www.ird.govt.nz

We will ask for bank account details if we don’t have them but importantly, we will always ask people to provide these in a secure way – using their myIR account or through our call centre.

We will also give people until February next year to pay any bill. A bill won’t have to be paid immediately.

Inland Revenue will never put a dollar amount of a refund in an e-mail or txt message and will not ask for your credit or debit card details in order to pay a refund. We will also never ask you to reply to an e-mail or txt message to provide your bank account details.

IR will also never speak to customers threateningly.

Anyone can get caught out. Scammers may call, txt or e-mail promising a tax refund if people provide personal details. If it seems too good to be true, it’s probably a scam.

For more information about scams visit: www.ird.govt.nz

If you think you have received a scam forward it to www.phishing@ird.govt.nz

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