The already-bad tax identity theft situation has gotten worse, so much so that the IRS has released two public service announcements to warn people about the importance of protecting their identities.
The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) has put on Youtube announcements in English and Spanish that warn people about tax scammers (https://www.youtube.com/user/TIGTAVIDEOS). The criminals’ two victims are the taxpayers and the government: The more illegal activity the government can deter, the better off are taxpayers and the treasury.
Tax scammers use a variety of schemes to separate individuals, businesses, and nonprofit organizations from their money; their burglary tools are principally telephone, email and even texts.
A fraudulent email’s realistic-looking elements are such that a Knoxville man who knows that such criminal enterprises exist nevertheless called a phone number that warned him of a problem. As he spoke to the person who answered, he noticed on closer inspection a grammatical mistake in the body of the message.
He said, “This is a scam, isn’t it?” The response, he said, was a stream of profanity from the man on the phone that would peel paint off a Navy ship. The Knoxville man escaped being a victim, but it was close.
In phone calls, people representing themselves as IRS agents calling about a tax matter can sound authoritative and convincing – or angry and intimidating. Their tactics may range from polite…
