Seventy people were arrested in India at a call centre where employees contacted people in Canada and alleged they were a representative of the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA).  

The callers from the fraudulent call centre would convince the victim that they owed a large amount of taxes to the CRA, and they would insist on immediate payment from the victim of the outstanding debt by money transfers or prepaid gift or credit cards.

A significant reduction in these types of CRA scam calls have been reported since these arrests.

The public is reminded that if you receive a call saying you owe money to the CRA, or you will be receiving a return from the CRA, you should confirm the source before giving any information, or sending any money.

If you have signed up for online mail, the CRA will do the following: 

• Send a registration confirmation email to the address you provided for online mail service for an individual or a business. 
• Send an email to the address you provided to notify you when new online mail is available to view in the CRA's secure online services portal. 

The CRA will not do the following: 

• Send email with a link and ask you to divulge personal or financial information; 
• (Exception: If you call the CRA to request a form or a link for specific information, a CRA agent will forward the information you are requesting to your email during the telephone call. This is the only circumstance in which the CRA will send an email containing links.) 
• Ask for personal information of any kind by email or text message; • Request payments by prepaid credit cards; 
• Give taxpayer information to another person, unless formal authorization is provided by the taxpayer; and
• Leave personal information on an answering machine. 

When in doubt, ask yourself the following: 

• Did I sign up to receive online mail from CRA? 
• Did I provide my email address on my income tax and benefit return to receive mail online? 
• Am I expecting more money from the CRA? 
• Does this sound too good to be true? 
• Is the requester asking for information I would not provide in my tax return? 
• Is the requester asking for information I know the CRA already has on file for me? 
  
  *This article was originally published 10/26/16