Scam re invoice from Standard Bank

11 August 2022
Accounting
South African Accounting Academy

You are urged to ensure that you take all the necessary precautions when interacting with SARS.

Also note that SARS will correspond directly with taxpayers or tax practitioners and not through a third party.

Members of the public are randomly emailed with false “spoofed” emails made to look as if these emails were sent from SARS, but are in fact fraudulent emails aimed at enticing unsuspecting taxpayers to part with personal information such as bank account details.

These emails that appear to be from a sars.gov.za e-mail address, indicating that taxpayers are eligible to receive tax or monetary benefits, or threatening some form of harm. These emails contain links to false forms and fake websites made to look like the “real thing”, but with the aim of fooling people into entering personal information such as bank account details which the criminals then extract and use fraudulently.

Please note these are scams and SARS taxpayers should take note of the following:

Do not open or respond to emails from unknown sources.
Beware of emails that ask for personal, tax, banking and eFiling details (login credentials, passwords, pins, credit / debit card information, etc.).
SARS will never request your banking details in any communication that you receive via post, email, or SMS. However, for the purpose of telephonic engagement and authentication purposes, SARS will verify your personal details. Importantly, SARS will not send you any hyperlinks to other websites - even those of banks.
Beware of false sms's.
SARS does not send *.htm or *.html attachments.
SARS will never ask for your credit card details.

Click here to download the example document of the scam:

https://www.sars.gov.za/wp-content/uploads/Docs/Scams/SARS-SCAM-318-Standard-Banks-SARS-Invoice-6-July-2022.pdf

Relevance to Auditors, Independent Reviewers & Accountants:

ACT is yet another piece of legislation that your clients must comply with, and which you must assess compliance with. If they don’t comply with the relevant laws and regulations, you have certain reporting obligations in terms of NOCLAR (NOn-Compliance with Laws And Regulations) – this could include reporting to management, qualifying your audit opinion, reporting a Reportable Irregularity, etc.
As an auditor and independent reviewer, you need to consider INFO.
As an accountant, you need to consider INFO.
As an employer, you also need to comply with ACT in your workplace

Relevance to Your clients:

An entity (company or close corporation) has a duty to comply with the Companies Act, and directors have to fulfil their duties accordingly, otherwise they could be held liable.
An employer has a duty to INFO

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