The Dangers of Post-Tax Season

Tax season is a good time to remind taxpayers to be aware of criminals making aggressive attempts at stealing taxpayer monies or personal information. The IRS will never contact taxpayers by email, text messages or social media channels to request personal or financial information. Yet, many consumers continue to fall for tax scams.

According to LifeLock, an identity theft company whose systems monitor identity theft, there are several tax scams to be aware of this post-tax season:

In the Refund Re-Calculation Scam, scammers will contact you either by email or text claiming that your IRS refund has been re-calculated and that you are due more money than originally thought. These emails might include the official logo of the IRS and ask you to click on a link which will re-direct you to a web page asking you for personal information. If you provide your personal information, the scammers can then use it to access your online banking accounts, or even go as far as opening credit accounts in your name.

With the Taxpayer Advocate Scam, scammers trick their victims by pretending to be a part of the IRS Taxpayer Advocate Service, which is an independent customer-advocacy organization within the IRS. Victims will receive a call from a scammer using a phone number that resembles that of the IRS, and the scammer requests personal information after establishing trust with the victim by pretending to be an employee of this special IRS department. One of the many techniques used by scammers to establish trust is by claiming that the victim is subject to receiving another Economic Stimulus and Relief payment upon verifying their information. While the federal government did send out Economic Stimulus and Relief payments due to the global pandemic, no new stimulus payments are being sent as of late 2021 or early 2022. Again, this is just a ruse and if you provide your personal information, the scammers can then use it for nefarious purposes.

You can avoid becoming a victim of tax-related fraud by:

• Never give personal or financial information to someone you don’t know during phone calls, in text messages, in emails, or even in person.
• Don’t click on any links before confirming that you know the sender and where the link points to.
• Never give money to receive money.
• Be sure to check your bank account and credit card statements regularly for suspicious activity.
• Register for an IRS identity protection PIN

If you are a victim of tax-related identity theft:

• Complete IRS Form 14039, Identity Theft Affidavit at www.irs.gov, print it, attach it to your paper tax return, and mail it to the IRS following instructions on the form.
• Report it to the Federal Trade Commission.
• Contact the three national credit bureaus, Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion to place a fraud alert on your credit reports.