I-T Dept warns taxpayers against fake texts, e-mails

R Ilavarasi, Additional Commissioner of Income Tax, clarified on behalf of the Chief Commissioner of Income Tax that such messages are fake and are not sent by the Income Tax Department.

He further said that Income Tax Department never asks for — through phone calls, e-mails or texts — pin numbers, OTP, password or similar access information for credit or debit cards, banks or other financialaccount-related information. Personal details suchas Aadhaar number, bank customer ID, ATM pin, among others, are not asked either.

A list of official e-mail and SMS campaigns sent by the e-filing unit of Income Tax Department is available in their official website. The press release further mentioned that updating personal details can be done only by the taxpayers by logging into their own e-filing account through the official Department website.