Warning about impersonating tax authorities to commit fraud during tax finalization month

The General Department of Taxation affirms that they do not authorize any organization or individual outside the Tax sector to collect taxes.

The main trick of the fraudsters is to impersonate tax officials to call, text, make friends on Zalo, provide links and guide taxpayers in tax settlement and installation of fake software applications to steal personal information and bank account information for the purpose of appropriating assets.

The fraudsters even pretend to be authorities to send fake VneID links for people to access to integrate citizen identification and tax code or send send a fake VneID link for people to edit personal information on the VneID application, then take control of the phone and take all the money from the bank account.

Faced with the above situation, the General Department of Taxation once again affirms that they do not authorize any organization or individual outside the tax sector to collect taxes and gives warnings to taxpayers that when receiving such calls, the taxpayers should contact the tax authority directly through official channels for support to avoid being abused of by fraudsters.

The General Department of Taxation recommends that when receiving messages, taxpayers need to carefully check the content, do not rush to reply or follow the instructions in the message.

Taxpayers should also note that the tax authority’s official website uses the “https” protocol and the Vietnamese national domain name “.vn”. (For example: The website of the General Department of Taxation has the domain name: https://www.gdt.gov.vn)

The impersonation mentioned above are illegal acts, abusing names of officials, tax officials, tax authorities at all levels and state agencies for personal gain and defrauding taxpayers. These behaviors have been causing damage, hindering production and business activities and assets of organizations, businesses, households, and individual businesses, damaging the reputation and image of officials of the tax authority.

To help taxpayers avoid online fraud, especially at the tax finalization period the General Department of Taxation recommends that when receiving messages and calls on social networking platforms with signs of fraud, taxpayers must save evidence such as text messages or call recordings, and report them to the telecommunications company and provide the evidence to the authorities of the Ministry of Public Security and the nearest tax authority to propose them to handle the violations.

To verify the identity and information of whether the caller is a tax official or not, taxpayers can verify by calling back the official phone number published on portals/website. of the tax authority or contact the tax authority directly through official channels.

The General Department of Taxation affirmed that the Tax sector has been actively coordinating with competent forces to fiercely fight, detect and handle these criminals.

However, the most important thing is that each person needs to increase their sense of vigilance and caution in all situations. When receiving phone calls suspected to be fake, people need to keep calm when receiving information, even threatening information.

Taxpayers should not rush to provide personal information via phone or email, should not follow instructions to install fake applications or links, and should immediately notify the local police agency for assistance and consulting.