Navigating tax time and staying safe

Garreth Hanley:
This is With Interest, a business, finance and accounting news podcast, brought to you by CPA Australia.

Elinor Kasapidis:
Welcome to CPA Australia's with interest podcast, bringing you this week's need to know information for business and accounting professionals. I'm Eleanor Kasapidis, senior manager Tax policy at CPA Australia. It's the 27th of June and in our fourth and final episode of our tax time series, assistant commissioner Tim Loh joins us to talk scams, cybersecurity, and how to navigate tax time more easily. Welcome Tim.

Tim Loh:
Hi El, thanks for having me again.

Elinor Kasapidis:
Everyone is talking about cybersecurity these days with data breaches happening regularly to even our biggest institutions. The ATO has experienced its own challenges with scams pretending to be from the ATO, while others have used false identities to commit fraud against taxpayers. With millions of Australians interacting digitally with the ATO or their tax agents. What are some steps we can all take to protect our information this tax time?

Tim Loh:
Yes El this is such an important topic, and we all know how important our personal information is and how valuable it can be to cyber criminals. That's why putting cyber safety measures in place such as frequently changing a password for online accounts and implementing multifactor authentication are so important. These are really simple steps that anyone can do to keep your information safe.

Elinor Kasapidis:
And we've heard a lot about myGov ID specifically. How do you protect that for example?

Tim Loh:
It's important to protect your myGov ID and your personal information to protect your identity from being used fraudulently. Your myGov ID is unique to you and shouldn't be shared, as this will give others access to your personal data across services such as tax health and much more. Now you can protect it by doing a few things like using a personal email address when setting up your myGov ID. So not using your work email, protecting your personal email account using multifactor authentication and delete any copies of identity documents that you may have in your emails. This includes your sent items too. And thirdly, keeping your smart devices secure. Now you can also increase the security of your myGov ID by verifying through additional identity documents. It's really important to note that if you do suspect someone has inappropriately accessed your personal information in myGov ID to report it immediately by calling the myGov ID support line. We'll pop a link with that phone number into the show notes if we can El.

Elinor Kasapidis:
Absolutely. And one of the important things is to distinguish between myGov, which is the interface that you use to access government services such as myTax and myGov ID, which is your identification, which verifies that it's actually you that's interacting with government systems. So what we are recommending to our listeners this year is to establish their myGov, ID connect it to their myGov account and that creates a multifactor authentication environment, which makes your data more secure.

Tim Loh:
Now. That's exactly right, El.

Elinor Kasapidis:
Now moving on to scams. I've personally been on the receiving end of phone calls, demanding tax debt payments and SMSs that look like they're from the ATO asking me to get in touch. How can taxpayers tell the difference and what can they do to check if a call or a letter from the ATO is for real?

Tim Loh:
I too have got these calls, like you El. We encourage taxpayers to be very wary of scam emails, phone calls and text messages, claiming to be from the ATO. We may use SMS or email to ask you to contact us, but we'll never send a message out of the blue asking you to return personal information through these channels or through social media. Something else we'll never do is also send you a link to log to our online services. It's always best to access ATO online services directly via ato.gov.au, my.gov.au or the ATO app and not by following a link that is sent to you. Now, if you think of phone call, SMS, voicemail, email or interaction on social media claiming to be from us isn't genuine. Our advice is don't engage with it. You should either phone us on 1 800 008 540 or visit our ato.gov.au/scams website to see how to spot and report a scam.

Elinor Kasapidis:
Thanks Tim. And the ATO website does have contact phone numbers and ways to get in touch directly so you can always call back if you have a question.

Tim Loh:
Absolutely.

Jackie Blondell:
If you're enjoying this podcast, you should check out our in-depth business and finance show, INTHEBLACK. Search for INTHEBLACK on your favourite podcast app today. And now, back to With Interest.

Elinor Kasapidis:
And what about on social media? Impersonator accounts are increasingly common.

Tim Loh:
Yeah, they are. In fact, there's quite a few Tim Loh's popping up in recent months, much to my disgust. Look, the reality is scammers target businesses of all sizes and they often do impersonate ATO employees and officials, and sometimes what they do is they even send direct messages to people with office of help or to take them to another channel. Now, if you think of an interaction on social media or any platform for that matter from the ATO is not genuine, don't engage with it. You can take a screenshot of the account and email it to our special email address, which is [email protected] and then block the account through the platform's reporting function. Now, if you want to read more on this or report or verify a potential scam, you can visit ato.gov.au/scams.

Elinor Kasapidis:
Now, many Australians do use a tax agent to help lodge their return, and these agents have specific responsibilities when it comes to client information, including taxpayer confidentiality and tax file numbers. Tim, from the ATO’s perspective, any tips on how tax agents can better manage their cyber security and privacy risks?

Tim Loh:
Look, it's true. Tax professionals hold the keys to their clients' identities. Strong cyber security practices are a critical component of every business. Now, it's important that you can keep all your business staff and client information secure. Now, implementing simple measures such as keeping the software on your work devices up to date and making sure sensitive client information is only made available to staff on a needs to know basis. Remember, cybersecurity isn't a set and forget function. It's like washing your hands or brushing your teeth. You don't just do it once and forget about it. Uh, it's a habit we all need to constantly maintain. There's some handy information on cyber.gov.au called the Essential 8. That is well worth the read.

Elinor Kasapidis:
Thanks Tim and CPA Australia also has a range of resources for our members and small business on cyber security because it's not just the ATO’s problem, it's everybody's issue to respond to. One thing tax agents should be mindful of as well are the requirements under the Tax Agent Services Act and regulated by the TPB who also have guidance, particularly when it comes to offshoring and outsourcing, maintaining privacy and client confidentiality. Also with records, they do recommend that you do not keep copies of identity documents, particularly when you're doing client agent verification or client agent linking processes. So it's important just to take a look at that and make sure your cybersecurity is up to scratch because you do have all of your client's information and your practise information out there. Before we bring our tax time podcast series to a close, Tim, how do you suggest taxpayers approach their tax return lodgements and any other reminders?

Tim Loh:
Well, thanks El. Thanks for having me on board for this series. Again. My top tax time reminders for individual listeners of this records, records, records. The most important thing at tax time is to have those records, especially if you're trying to claim a deduction. The second is if you are using a tax agent to lodge your tax return, make sure they're registered with the Tax Practitioner's board. Thirdly, we know some people are doing it tough, but it is important to keep your lodgements up to date even if you can't pay immediately. Lodging on time means you'll understand your net tax position, which means that we'll be able to figure out the right tailored solution for you to get your tax obligations up to date. If you need extra support or assistance, we are here to help. We will work with you or your registered tax agent or BAS agent to help you get back on track and to manage your obligations.

Tim Loh:
Tax time is also a great time to do a super health check. Your super is one of the biggest assets you'll accumulate in your lifetime. Use our checklist to review the health of your super ato.gov.au/superhealthcheck. You can review your super information via ATO online services and through the ATO app. Now, for the Tax Professionals tuning, just keep in mind your clients may have a lower refund than expected or they may get a tax bill this tax time. There are a number of reasons for this. One reason being that the low and middle income tax offset has ended and is not available this tax time. We recommend discussing the determining factors with your clients and setting expectations about the size of their return. Again, you can read more on this at ato.gov.au/mytaxresult.

Elinor Kasapidis:
Thanks so much, Tim. We've covered so much over the last four podcasts and certainly the messages around record keeping, keeping an eye out for rental income and deductions. The special topics when it comes to tradies and just being safe when you're interacting online, they're all very important messages. This brings our tax time podcast series to a close. Once again, thank you so much for joining us.

Tim Loh:
Thanks, El.

Elinor Kasapidis:
If you're interested in knowing more about what we've covered today or in the past three episodes, our show notes contain lots of links to further information including on the ATO website. If you're looking for advice, speak to a registered tax agent. If you like what you've heard today, subscribe on your favourite podcast app. From all of us here at CPA Australia, thanks for listening.

Garreth Hanley:
You've been listening to With Interest, a CPA Australia podcast. If you've enjoyed this episode, help others discover With Interest by leaving us a review and sharing this episode with colleagues, clients, or anyone else interested in the latest finance, business and accounting news. To find out more about our other podcasts and CPA Australia, check the show notes for this episode. Hope you can join us again for another episode of With Interest.