Impersonation scams sent in the early hours are designed to catch taxpayers off guard, accountants warn
Taxpayers should expect a deluge of scam activity ahead of June 30, as cunning crooks impersonate the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) in emails and texts.
CPA Australia tax lead Jenny Wong warned the public that these communications could often be sent overnight, designed to catch people out before they'd had their morning coffee.
'These 'phishing' scams not only look legitimate, but they're designed to catch you off guard. That's why you'll often see them arrive first thing in the morning because you may be more likely to have a momentary lapse in judgment,' Ms Wong said.
'The scammers know Australians will have tax on their mind and are vulnerable to prompts to act, which is why these messages usually create a sense of urgency or claim of significant refund.
'While they could come at any time, be especially careful opening up and reading messages while you're still waking up in the morning.'
Scam emails impersonating the ATO have titles including 'Urgent new notification in your account inbox', directing unsuspecting people to log into their myGov account through a fake link.
ATO data shows a huge rise in this type of impersonation scam, up by more than 300 per cent in the past year.
The ATO said more scam messages were generally sent during tax time, as scammers tend to know taxpayers expect communications from the tax office.
To avoid falling prey to these scams, people have been warned to look for grammatical errors such as Americanised spellings in communications.
Other signs of scams are hyperlinks in unsolicited text messages, anomalies in the sender's email address, and requests for urgent personal or financial information.
The National Anti-Scam Centre reports that Australians have lost $13.7m in impersonation scams since the start of the year compared with $4.6m for the same period last year.
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