 internal revenue service IRS tax news taxpayers beware tax season is prime time for phone scams but first and attempt at a joke I apologize in advance you want to get into it huh do you you really want to get into it you should buy turbo tax because they're owned by into it so that way you can totally get some into it and for a reasonable price although you will need to pay for it because into it and turbo tax are apparently not participating in the IRS free file program I can't say I blame them really tax tip 2022-15 January 27 2022 with the new tax season starting this week the IRS reminds taxpayers to be aware that criminals continue to make aggressive calls posing as IRS agents in hopes of stealing taxpayer money or personal information and there's possibly more of an increase in these items with the new tax laws changes in part because some of that personal information might be more valuable at this point in time because if people can file fraudulent returns even if throughout the low end of the tax spectrum in terms of income levels you got all these refundable credits that are out there at this point in time so now you got the stimulus check which is the recovery rebate credit they increase the child tax credit made more of it refundable and of course you have the earned income credit and those can make you know this information more and more significant so you got to be on a heightened awareness even more heightened to the normal for personal information at least with regards to fraudulent tax returns and so on so here are some telltale signs of a tax scam along with actions taxpayers can take if they receive a scam call obviously the main thing you want to do is if you're getting a call from someone posing as the IRS or anything that you think is a scam is basically just to say thank you no thank you and hang up because the more they keep talking if you have a good scammer most of the scammers are not good and it's kind of it's almost laughable when they go through their kind of bit but if you get a good scammer there then they'll try to you know they might be able to keep you on the phone and so on and so you just basically have to have to cut them off and be rude and just say thank you very much I appreciate your time goodbye and that's all you can do it seems to me but the IRS will never call to demand immediate payment using a specific payment method such as a prepaid debit card gift card or wire transfer now of course the actual money transfers generally something that's going to happen at the end of the scam so even if they had a convincing scam going basically at the beginning like oh you know your family members in jail you have to wire us money to give us so we can get bail or something like that but then if they ask for the money and like a prepaid debit card or a gift card it in some kind of way that you know is not trinket traceable that should be a kind of a giveaway anytime someone's asking for money and they're trying to hide the fact of the transfer so that so that there's no trail of the transfer that would be an indication that something is not right why would you want why does it matter how I pay you I can transfer money a ton of different ways at this point in time and I'd like to be able to trace the money that I transfer in most cases so in any case generally the IRS will first mail or bill to any taxpayer who owes taxes so generally the IRS is still on the old kind of snail mail type of system old bureaucratic type of system so you're usually going to get a bill in the mail it'll be fairly consistent the IRS will then you know 30 to 60 days later follow up on it and so on and so forth so you're generally quite aware of the IRS slow it's like a slowly moving boulder as opposed to somebody calling you really quickly and saying give me money now or the IRS agent's gonna come come knock on your door now it's usually slow moving boulder which if you don't take action over a long period of time will crush you but not in some sudden bursts typically so threatened to immediately bring in local police or other law enforcement groups to have the taxpayer arrested for not paying so any kind of threat that happens like that you need to take immediate action these are of course scam moves in general where there's a time there's time pressure there's there's you can't you got to make the decision at this point in time and then of course threats why because threat you know and that's you know that's not usually how of course the IRS will typically work again there's slow a slow moving boulder that will slowly you know you know make threats but it won't be like you know all of a sudden call comes out of the blue and you know IRS agent's gonna you know take you to jail or something typically so demand the taxes be paid without giving taxpayers the opportunity to request or appeal the amount owed so again the that the IRS is trying to follow the law as the law is laid down so basically you're able to argue against whatever tax there are imposing in accordance with whatever the law is that they're saying you owe the taxes for and so call unexpectedly about tax refund so they're not going to just basically call and say you get the tax refund we need some more information in order to process that refund that the iris is call centers are way down these days so they're not really calling many people at all they're not even taking calls too much so in any case tack well they're taking some calls but very I mean a fairly low percentage of the calls are getting through taxpayers to receive these phone calls should record the number and then hang up the phone immediately so that's true with any scam so like I say if they start you know all you could do is say no thank you and hang up and then be rude but that's all you can do report the call to TIG TA using their IRS in a man impersonation scam reporting form there's a link to that here or by calling 800-366-4484 report the number to fishing at irs.gov there's a there's a link to these items here they'll be the phone number in the description if you want to use these and be sure to put quote irs phone scam in quote in the subject line more information below can be found at tax scams and consumer alerts report fishing and online scams there's links to those items there'll be this information if you want to report this stuff and have that information here and there'll be a link to this in the description