Modern Age Tax Scams

By Dale K. Geeslin, CPA, CFE

The IRS recently released what it considers the top tax scams of 2014. Identity theft and telephone scams top this year’s list. The annual list contains various common scams that taxpayers may be subjected to at any time, but the IRS says many of them reach a peak during tax filing season.

Pervasive telephone scams represent a new method crooks use to try and separate you from your money. Callers pretend to be from the IRS and try to steal your money or identity. The IRS says that in these scams the callers may say the victim owes a substantial amount of past due tax or is entitled to a huge refund. Sometimes the caller even threatens the victim with arrest or that your driver’s license will be revoked. Callers can appear genuine because they may be able to recite the last four digits of your Social Security number or may imitate the IRS’s toll-free number on caller ID to make it appear that the IRS is in fact calling. The IRS also warns that some telephone scams target recent immigrants who are threatened with arrest or deportation if they do not pay up promptly.

The IRS does not make initial contact regarding tax issues by the telephone or email. They ask that taxpayers who think they are being targeted by phone scammers to contact the Service at 800-829-1040, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration at 800-366-4484, or the Federal Trade Commission using the FTC Complaint Assistant at FTC.gov. Or you can do what one of my senior citizen clients did when she was a recent target. She gave the caller my name and telephone number and informed them to call me with any issues. Funny, but I got no call.