If you have been receiving income tax refund emails and messages, be careful because some of them might be fake! The income tax department is warning honest taxpayers about fake refund messages sent by fraudsters. In the past couple of years, fraudsters and scammers have been trying to use Phishing in order to scam people online.

The I-T department in its warning asked the taxpayers to not respond to any email, message or phone call asking for a PIN, OTP, password, credit card/debit card details etc. The department further cautioned taxpayers against sharing their financial account information or personal information in such cases.

If you are not sure about which mail or message is fake or genuine. In its warning, the tax department asked people to check the domain name carefully. Since these fake email IDs are created to fool people, they have misspelt or incorrect sounding variants of Income Tax Department web sites and will also have an incorrect email header. Always check the email ID spelling carefully.

In case anyone has received any such phishing/suspicious mail or message, the tax department has advised people to not open any attachment since it might contain malicious virus or code which might end up stealing your personal, financial data. In case there is any link in the mail, DO NOT click it. If you have clicked any such link by mistake, do not enter any personal or financial information like bank account, credit/debit/ATM card, income tax details etc.

These fake refund messages might scam you in to sharing your bank details and use that information to steal your money. The warning also stated that the Income Tax Department never asks for people's PIN, OTP, password or any other secure financial information.

Worth mentioning here is that tax season is about to come to an end and if you have not filed your income tax return yet, you should. In order to file to your ITR, you need some important documents.

There are the documents you need to file your ITR:

1. Form 16: It is a document which contains your detailed salary breakup and TDS details. It is issued by your employer and it states the tax deducted at source which paid to the government on your behalf. It also contains the paid allowances and other details.

2. Form 26 AS: It is essentially a consolidated annual tax statement which contains details about taxes paid, taxes deducted from your income. The form can be easily downloaded from the TRACES website.

3. Interest certificates: Since the interest earned on a savings bank account, fixed deposits, post office savings account and recurring deposits are taxable, you need to collect interest certificate in order to calculate your tax on the interest earned in the financial year.

4. Tax-saving investment proofs: Under the Income Tax Act, there is tax exemption investment options like NPS, PPF, EPF, ELSS, mutual funds etc. You need proofs of all such investments to claim income tax deduction.

5. Home loan statements: Under the Income Tax Act, one can claim income tax deduction of up to Rs 1.5 lakh on the principal home loan amount. In order to claim this deduction, you need all home loan statements.

6. Aadhaar and PAN card: Now, Aadhaar is mandatory for filing ITR along with PAN which links all your earnings. Aadhaar has to be linked to PAN card in order to file ITR and the last date for linking both is March 31, 2019.