As tax season gets underway tax preparers are gearing up for the busy season. People are starting to receive their tax forms including W-2s and 1099s. Unfortunately, another group of less than honorable individuals are also busy at work, and those are the tax scammers. Tax scams have definitely been on the increase throughout my career, and the methods of these fraudulent scams continue to expand as the use of multiple communication methods has exploded.
One of the more common scams that has moved into the area of income taxes is that of phishing. Taxpayers should be aware that the IRS NEVER communicates with a taxpayer for any reason via email. I am not certain the IRS even has email as I have never communicated with anyone at the IRS via email and I communicate with IRS personnel frequently. Do not open or respond in any fashion to anyone claiming to be from the IRS in an email.
A scam that I personally have received is a phone scam. The IRS will not initiate any phone calls without extensive prior written correspondence. The IRS already has your name, address, social security number and tax refund amounts so you should be very suspicious of anyone asking you to provide this information. Most of these fraudulent calls from my experience are from numbers that cannot be called back; the callers are usually very abrasive, demanding and use intimidating tactics. A tactic that I use is to tell them I will call them back and ask them for their phone number. A legitimate IRS…
