There are new tax scams taking place that the IRS wants consumers to know about. These strategies against taxpayers happen over the phone, through e-mails, or through authentic-looking letters and attempt to deceive people into giving them personal information or frighten them into making a payment to a false entity.
Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) has recorded about 600,000 scams from October 2013 until now. More than 4,000 consumers have jointly reported over $20 million in monetary losses as a result of these tax scams. The IRS advises taxpayers to be skeptical of questionable phone calls, letters, or emails. Con artists pose as IRS agents and target the most defenseless people, such as the elderly, immigrants, or people for whom English is not their first language. Now these scammers are targeting everyone.
One thing they do is spoof the information on the caller ID to display the calling information of a government agency, most commonly the DMV or IRS. They use online resources to gather their victims’ information and copy official letterhead in regular mail or email. They might even provide directions to a bank and prompt the victim to get a debit card and provide an IRS address to which to mail the payment receipt.
Fear is the tool con artists use most often. They try to scare their victim into immediate action thus holding them back from seeking advice. They often intimidate targets threatening police arrest through robocalls with urgent callback requests, email, or phone.
Remember that the official IRS website is IRS.gov. Taxpayers are advised not to be led astray by websites that claim to be the IRS but have a different designation instead of .gov, such as .com, .net, or .org. People should never give personal information to questionable websites or unknown people calling them randomly.
These are five things the IRS will not do:
- Be argumentative and demand immediate payment on the telephone, or give you a call about paying taxes owed without you already receiving the bill
- Threaten arrest for non-payment
- Demand that you pay without you being able to question the amount or appeal the amount owed
- Tell you how to make the payment, such as with a prepaid debit card
- Ask you for credit card or debit card numbers over the telephone
If you think you are the target of someone impersonating the IRS, here is what you can do:
- If you owe taxes, call the IRS at 1-800-829-1040. The IRS employees can help with payment issues.
- If you don’t believe you owe taxes, report it to TIGTA (Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration) at 1-800-366-4484.
- If you have been the victim of any scam, please call the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) and use the FTC Complaint Assistant at FTC.gov. Add “IRS Telephone Scam” in the comments section.
