News No.     : 2/2009

Date             :  18 December 2008

Subject        : Beware of fraudulent tax refund and donation for the purpose of sparing the lives of cows and cattle.

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                         Recently, there are certain dishonest people who make fictitious telephone calls to others creating troubles and annoyance, and even causing monetary damages in some cases. The Revenue Department has continuously received reports on such scam activity. Although legal actions have been implemented, these scams have still been seen causing more and more damages.

                         When making fictitious telephone calls, these dishonest people will claim to be officials or executives of the Revenue Department and try to ask their targets to take some actions, mostly related to:

                         1. fictitious tax refund claims. These people would call a target using the 13 digit telephone or automatic telephone system withholding their numbers to notify about tax refund. They would claim that the Revenue Department has already issued a cheque for tax refund, for the tax years 2002-2006, but the cheque has not been cashed yet. Then they will ask the target to contact officials at one of the Area Revenue Branch offices or at headquarter causing obstacles for receiving the refund. These people will call back and ask the target to transfer money via ATM to their bank accounts.

                         2. donations for the purpose of sparing the lives of cows and cattles or for other charity purposes. They will send counterfeit official letters to their targets asking for donations. Then they will make telephone calls to follow up by claiming to be executives of the Revenue Department and ask the targets, who wish to donate, to transfer their money via ATM to their bank account.

                         Mr. Satit Rungkasiri, Principal Advisor on Strategic Tax Administration (Finance and Banking) and Spokesperson of the Revenue Department, said that “The Revenue Department has neither setting regulations for officials to transfer tax refunds directly via ATM nor asking for donation or authorising other charitable organisations to act on behalf of the Revenue Department. If you are advised to transfer money to an individual bank account for the above purposes, be sure that you are being scammed. Also if any one notice such behaviour, please write to us at P.O. Box 345 Samsen Nai, Bangkok 10400 or directly contact RD Call Center at 0 2272 8000 during official hours.”