The IRS has alerted taxpayers to several new scams in which taxpayers receive phone calls or emails from people impersonating IRS employees in order to trick the taxpayers into revealing personal and financial information that enable identity theft. Below several examples of such schemes are listed.
There are both phone and email schemes involving the Economic Stimulus Refund. Several of our clients have received phone calls in which the caller says he or she is an IRS employee and then asks for the taxpayer’s Social Security and bank account numbers. There are also several emails that contain a link sending taxpayers to a site where they are instructed to fill out a form with financial information for direct deposit of their stimulus payments. It is important to remember that the IRS, in actuality, uses the information contained on the taxpayer’s tax return to process any stimulus payments, refunds, or transactions of any type. The IRS does not gather information by telephone or email.
Another telephone scheme is one in which the caller tells the taxpayer that he or she is eligible for a sizable rebate for filing taxes early so long as the taxpayer provides bank account information. There is no legislation that would allow the IRS to provide advance payments to taxpayers.
In yet another telephone scam, a caller claims to work for the IRS and is contacting the taxpayer because the IRS supposedly sent a check to the taxpayer that has not been cashed. The caller will want to verify bank account information. However, the IRS does not contact taxpayers to verify any such information; they rely on the accuracy of whatever bank account information is listed on the tax returns of those taxpayers who prefer direct deposit, or otherwise, the IRS does not need any bank account information.
As email scams are now just as prevalent as phone scams, taxpayers should be aware that the IRS does not send unsolicited email about tax information to individual, business, tax-exempt, or any other taxpayers. Thus, do not fall for the refund email scam, where a phony email claims to come from the IRS telling the recipient that he or she is eligible for a refund that he or she can claim by clicking on a link and entering personal information onto a refund claim form. This bogus email may also contain two paragraphs directed toward tax-exempt organizations that distribute funds to other organizations or individuals followed by the name and fake signature of the Director of the IRS’s Exempt Organizations division.
Scammers have another new email scheme that notifies the recipient that his or her tax return is going to be audited and consequently he or she needs to click on links to fill out forms with personal and account information. These emails may even address the recipients by name (which is uncommon in many of the other email scams since this technique is more time consuming for the impersonators), but such emails are still not legitimate IRS communications.
Finally, beware of a phony email that may be addressed to businesses, accountants, and “Treasury” managers. The email will instruct the recipient to download an array of publications on tax law changes, but the IRS believes these downloads may actually be malicious codes that can take control of the victim’s computer hard drive, potentially providing unauthorized remote access to the computer or looking for passwords and other information coveted by a scammer.
In order to protect yourself as much as possible, when accessing the IRS website, type the www.irs.gov address directly into your address window instead of following any email links or attachments. If you have received questionable communications claiming to be from the IRS, forward any suspicious emails to the address specifically created for such concerns, phishing@irs.gov, and follow the instructions in the article “How to Protect Yourself from Suspicious Emails or Phishing Scheme” available on the IRS website.
By Rose G. Doherty, CPA, Partner, rdoherty@legacycpas.com