IRS Scam Warning

The Internal Revenue Service continues to hear from taxpayers who have received unsolicited calls from individuals demanding payment while fraudulently claiming to be from the IRS. Based on the 90,000 complaints that TIGTA has received through its telephone hotline, to date, TIGTA has identified approximately 1,100 victims who have lost an estimated $5 million from these scams.

Taxpayers should remember their first contact with the IRS will not be a call out of the blue, but through official correspondence sent through the mail. A big red flag for these scams are angry, threatening calls from people who say they are from the IRS and urging immediate payment. People should hang up immediately and contact TIGTA or the IRS.

Additionally, it is important for taxpayers to know that the IRS:

•Never asks for credit card, debit card or prepaid card information over the telephone.

•Never insists that taxpayers use a specific payment method to pay tax obligations.

•Never requests immediate payment over the telephone and will not take enforcement action immediately following a phone conversation. If you get a call from someone claiming to be from the IRS, you have a couple of options:

•If you know you owe taxes or you think you might owe taxes, call the IRS at 1.800.829.1040. IRS employees can help you with a payment issue, if an issue actually exists.

•If you know you don’t owe taxes or have no reason to think that you owe any taxes (for example, you’ve never received a bill or the caller made some bogus threats as described above), then call and report the incident to the hotline at 1.800.366.4484. (Courtesy of IRS.GOV)