· Over 16,000 e-Filing profiles have been hijacked by cyber criminals posing as taxpayers and stealing refunds worth up to R100,000 each.
· The Tax Ombudsman’s report on the hacking scandal was delayed after Sars asked for more time to respond to its findings.
More than 16,000 South African Revenue Service (Sars) e-Filing accounts have been hijacked by cyber criminals, and taxpayers are paying the price.
The hackers steal people’s identities, break into their Sars profiles and file fake returns to claim their refunds.
The Tax Ombudsman’s Office (OTO) is leading the investigation. It started looking into the problem a year ago after getting loads of complaints, mostly from people with personal income tax and VAT accounts.
According to Timelive, individual taxpayers have lost as much as R100,000 to these scams.
Criminals use stolen login details and SIM swaps to break in, then act as if they are the actual taxpayer. Once they take control of the account, they file fraudulent returns and collect the cash.
The number of hacked accounts keeps growing as scammers find new ways to beat the system.
Sars is yet to fully respond to the Ombudsman’s draft report. It was supposed to be released to the public on 7 July, then pushed to 31 August.
The delay came after Sars commissioner Edward Kieswetter asked for more time to respond to the early findings.
Sars spokesperson Siphithi Sibeko said: “Sars is committed to enable and empower taxpayers to engage the organisation by providing clarity and certainty and making it easy and simple for them to meet their legal obligation.”
But many hacked taxpayers say Sars is not doing enough to protect their information.
Pictured above: Sars logo
Source: Supplied
