In a message published on the Finance Portal, the tax authorities inform that they are aware that "some" taxpayers have received emails supposedly from the AT in which they are asked to click on a link provided to receive an alleged refund.​

As an example, the body of these messages shows an email entitled "Important Notice - VAT Refund", where it is said that, based on the last tax calculation, it has been determined that the recipient of the message is eligible for a tax refund of 1493 euros.

"Click below to complete the refund process through the Portal das Finanças Website", reads that email - which AT highlights should be ignored and deleted. "Its purpose [of the fraudulent email] is to convince the recipient to access malicious pages by clicking on the suggested links. Under no circumstances should you carry out this operation."