The Large Enterprise Tax Department (General Department of Taxation) has just issued Official Dispatch No. 1345/CT-QLT2 on coordination of propaganda and dissemination in personal income tax refund work. Accordingly, in order to support taxpayers in declaring, paying taxes, and electronic tax refunds quickly and conveniently, and to support individual taxpayers, since 2022, the General Department of Taxation has widely deployed the eTax Mobile application for individual taxpayers.

Through the eTax Mobile application, taxpayers can look up information about: tax obligations, personal tax codes, register for deductions for dependents, receive tax notices, pay taxes electronically through linking with bank accounts, perform tax settlement procedures, personal income tax refunds...

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Photo: General Department of Taxation

However, in addition to the conveniences of electronic tax services that the tax sector has deployed, there are still some cases where individual taxpayers use "personal income tax refund services" from unverified social networking sites; there are even cases where taxpayers are lured by brokers to use tax settlement services.

Accordingly, these brokers require taxpayers to provide all eTax Mobile application accounts and passwords to "individuals providing services" to complete tax refund procedures, which in reality has led to a number of cases where taxpayers have been taken advantage of and defrauded.

At the same time, taxpayers hiring groups and individuals without business registration or tax service practice certificates to provide tax settlement services may lead to the theft of taxpayers' personal information to commit other illegal acts in cyberspace.

The Large Enterprise Tax Department recommends that individual taxpayers absolutely do not provide personal information, account information, or passwords to other entities to avoid cases where bad actors take advantage of, fraudulently use, or illegally use accounts.

When taxpayers detect impersonation or receive information with signs of impersonation, they must immediately notify the tax authority or the paying organization for timely inspection, verification instructions and measures to avoid damage. The Large Enterprise Tax Department notes: taxpayers should not download or install applications through unofficial links or other instructions, and pay attention to some signs of fraudulent applications such as when installing the application, it often asks for permission to view the screen, input data, and control the screen.

Quoc Tuan