When fraudsters engage in phishing, they often use the Internal Revenue Service to deceive victims. It is, possibly, the most mimicked government agency used in scams to get your personal information.
Sadly, many people have lost a lot of money and their personal data to tax scams. Theses scammers employ the usual telephone, email, or mail to set up companies, people, and tax professionals.
While the authorities are doing all that they can to bring the perpetrators to justice, there’s a lot you can do to protect yourself. Information is key, and this article contains substantial information to help you avoid being scammed.
What You Should Know About Scams
It is essential to know how these scammers go about their criminal acts. Knowing this will help you be more vigilant and alert.
I. Scammers make contacts through emails, text messages, or phone calls. Here they hide under false identities to ask for your personal information. With these vital details, it’s easy for them to defraud you.
II. Scammers go under the guise of the Taxpayer Advocacy Panel (TAP) to make claims of a possible tax refund. This usually results in taxpayers revealing their personal information to get these refunds. TAP never requests personal information; they only play advisory roles to the IRS.
III. Some of these scammers are very sophisticated, big, and well organized. They operate on a high level of impersonation and usually have a lot of information on their targets. They could even have real IRS employee badge numbers or logos. Therefore, these aggressive identity thieves are very careful and thorough, so it’s easy to fall prey to them.
IV. With the help of some vital information, they can infiltrate and doctor your tax returns. They can also make changes to your tax liability and then demand immediate payments. Some of them can go as far as threatening you with criminal fraud charges.
V. Additionally, scammers target information on the W-2 forms to initiate their fraudulent activities. The W-2 form reports the employees’ annual wages and the amount of taxes deducted from their paychecks. Scammers use data from these forms to carry out the W-2 scam.
The Red Flags You Should Look Out For
Below we will give you some tips on how the IRS operates. With that, you can easily detect the fraud attempt when you notice the contrary.
I. IRS never contacts taxpayers or businesses to request personal or financial information, not through emails, text messages, social media, or phone calls. It makes contact through mail delivered by the US Postal Service. Even in the few cases where it calls or visits taxpayers, the IRS will have sent a series of “notices” before that.
II. The IRS does not call taxpayers to demand payments through debit cards, gift cards, or wire transfers. However, it does usually send tax bills to taxpayers through the mail.
III. The IRS will never threaten taxpayers with police arrests or revoking of licenses. It, rather, gives guidelines on how taxpayers can pay their taxes to the United States treasury.
Sound Accounts is an establishment that understands licensing. If they handle the licensing and notary aspects of your business, scammers don’t stand any chance.
IV. As a taxpayer, you have every right to contest your tax liability. The IRS always gives you the fair opportunity to do so.
V. The IRS can use private debt collectors to collect taxes. Note, however, that these debt collectors are not the ones that receive the payments. When real payments are sent, the taxpayers pay to the US treasury through the IRS.
What You Should Do
I. Any contact via email or text message will likely be a scam. It’s therefore advised that you don’t respond to such messages or download file attachments. You should forward such emails and texts to phishing@irs.gov, and then delete the message
II. When you get phony phone calls, make sure you don’t disclose personal or financial information to the caller no matter how authentic the number looks. Hang up instead and call the IRS phone number (1-800-366-4484) to verify the authenticity of the caller.
Unfortunately, IRS scam is real, and it has caused a lot of taxpayers millions of dollars. It may be challenging to be completely free of these scams, but you can increase your chances of safety. Some of these scammers, as we read, tend to target your filing system as a business or even individual.
It, therefore, becomes important that you have competent professionals to handle vital and delicate administrative roles for you. Such precautionary measures, coupled with the information we’ve provided above, will go a long way to protect you from scams. Good luck!
