Don't share password on Net, phone: I-T department

The income tax department has advised its officials to shun the practice of sharing or renewing official passwords through Internet or telephone after recent incidents of misuse of these secret codes by fraudsters came to light.

The Central Bureau of Investigation in Mumbai had recently arrested five persons, including three I-T officials and a television artiste, for allegedly duping the department of Rs 3 crore (Rs 30 million) by filing fake I-T returns.

"Please avoid telephonic queries regarding passwords. Passwords will not be communicated over telephone or e-mail," the department advised its officials in a communication.

It said communications regarding passwords should be done through internal portals of the department only after proper checks.

The department, apart from official communication on its servers, also transfers huge amount of money for cases of refunds. The money is directly transferred to the taxpayers bank account.

"The passwords to official e-mail identities of department officers have been misused resulting in siphoning off the money. At times, the passwords were known even to the staff which will now be restricted to the concerned officer," a senior I-T department officer said.

The move will also ensure and enhance safety of proprietary taxpayer information, the officer said.

The department has asked its database cell, which maintains the official portals and servers of the department, to reassign the passwords to the officials after recording the civil code (service identity number) of the officer, place of current posting and address and contact numbers.

The I-T department in its internal inquiry earlier had found that user IDs and passwords of certain officers had been fraudulently used to generate refunds in some cases.

The CBI while investigating the case in Mumbai last month had found that a chartered accountant  has collected Personal Account Numbers (PAN) from 23 persons and bank account details and blank post-dated cheques signed by them.

The CA then prepared fake I-T returns, computation sheets and other related documents of these PAN card holders and provided the details to an I-T official.

Subsequently, the I-T official entered the said data into computer system of the department and generated e-refund which was electronically transferred to bank accounts of the PAN card holders.