 Internal Revenue Service R.S. Tax News National Tax Security Awareness Week given Tuesday highlights that scammers may use phony characters to trick taxpayers. What? Scammers might like lie about stuff during their scams? Sir, it's quite possible this asteroid is not entirely stable. Not entirely stable. Honestly, that's not exactly surprising, isn't it? Glad you're here to tell us these things. I mean, I kind of felt like lying was part of the definition of scammers. Chewie, take the professor in the back and plug him into the hyperdrive. It's just unusual to the IRS because when they take your money, they just come right out and use brute force to take it. But whatever, first a joke. Apparently, Tampax, a tampon distributor, may be asking transgender men or women or whatever to sponsor them on TikTok. I mean, honestly, I can't believe anybody is even surprised at this at all. Because to make money? I mean, Tampax is just trying to double their market share overnight. I mean, just when you thought the tampon markets all dried up. I haven't laughed that hard since I was a little girl. Thank you. Tampax finds a way to soak up more profits. Oh, you're not joking. The marketing team being inspired by the visionary social influencers on TikTok. Seventy-five of being a girl and I've been carrying around tampons and pads for the past two months, but I've actually never opened one up. So, you know, what exactly a transgender dude is supposed to do with a tampon is still unclear. Mr. Roboto is lying to us. Tell me something I don't know. Open mouth, kiss the horse once. Say what? I mean, traditionally, transgender dudes were supposed to try to like reduce the crotch bulge. I think I thought the letter stood for small, medium and large based on the size of your Barbie pouch. And you would think attempts at using tampons, you know, would do the opposite. I guess my question is, which one do I carry around the super? But rest assured, the marketing team will think of some flow they can stop so as to get the revenue flow to start. And we all just normalize women having bulges sometimes. So normalize the bulge. We are normalizing the bulge. Women can have bulges and that's OK. IR 2022-205, November 29, 2022, Washington on giving Tuesday, the Internal Revenue Service and its Security Summit partners. There's a link to that here. Warned taxpayers to be on alert for scammers using fake charities to commit fraud, not just during holiday season, but year round on day two of National Tax Security Awareness Week, the IRS and its Security Summit partners urge people to make sure their money goes only to legitimate charities. Being alert to potential scams will not only shield a taxpayer's money, but also help protect personal and financial data that can be used in tax related identity theft. Quote, people should watch out for fake charities which create problems on multiple fronts. In quotes at IRS Acting Commissioner Doug O'Donald. So obviously in the last few years, there's been an environment where people might try to increase the use of these types of fake charities, clearly giving money to the fake charity is bad enough because obviously the money might not be going to any kind of charitable thing at all, even if given to a legitimate charity. You still probably want to do some research to see if they're actually efficient at doing the thing that their charity is designed to do. In other words, it's quite possible that you have something structured legally as a charity, but run incredibly inefficiently. The money then going primarily to like the people running the charity as opposed to the charitable work in process. But on top of that, they might use the charitable organization to try to steal the personal information, personal information being very valuable as we all know these days, so that people try to scam stuff in other ways and whatnot. So that's the other thing we want to be aware of and careful on. Any time someone's kind of pressuring us and giving a time constraint and trying to give social pressure and so on, it's probably a sign that we should say, OK, I'm just not going to deal with you. I'll give you I'll give you money on my own terms and whatnot. Anyways, quote, not only can well intentioned donors lose out on their money and a potential charitable donation credit, but their personal financial information could also be stolen. We urge people to act carefully before they give, including following several tips to make sure the charity is legitimate, working together as their security summit. It's kind of like the Justice League, but not nearly as effective. But in any case, you got the security summit, the IRS, state tax agencies and the nation's tax software tax professional industries are providing tips this week to help protect people against identity theft, as well as help safeguard sensitive tax information that criminals can use to try to file fake tax returns and obtain refunds. This effort is part of a national tax security awareness week. Problem solved, people. Awareness week is going to happen. And then the problems will go away. So it's now in its seventh year of this this thing. So scammers often take advantage of people's generosity by setting up fake charities to trick unsuspecting donors into giving away not only money, but also their sensitive personal information. So it's a double a double whammy kill that they get you on there. You could just see the scammers like putting their fingers together in a malicious way and laughing at you as they take your money and your and your information so they can take more money or do something horrible to you. So I don't know. They can use the holiday season and other timely events such as recent disasters to try to reach out to people and lure them into a donation. Scams requesting donations for disaster relief efforts are especially common over the phone. However, scammers also use emails, text messages, websites and social media messages that mimic a legitimate charity to trick people into giving money or personal information. Those nefarious folk. So the IRS and Security Summit partners urge people to make sure their money goes only to legitimate charities. Being alert to potential scams will not only shield the taxpayers' money, but also help protect personal and financial data that can be used in tax-related identity theft. Tips to avoiding fake charity scams. Don't give in to pressure. So obviously most scams typically have that kind of thing. They've got a timing thing involved into that. You're going to lose out on giving to the charity or something if you don't do this in some short period of time and whatnot. And so anytime you're feeling that kind of pressure, especially over something like a charity that doesn't see that shouldn't be the case, right? So you should probably just walk away, although I know that is difficult to do. And it's not like I've done that every time someone, you know, scams me on something, but that's that's what I should have done. Any case, scammers often use the technique to urge, to urgent of urgent need to pressure people into making an immediate payment. Legitimate charities are happy to get a donation at any time. There's no rush. Donors are encouraged to take time to do their own research. Don't forget that scammers may alert, alter or spoof their caller ID to make it look like a real charity. So normally it's kind of nice to be able to do your own research so you can give the money to an organization that actually is doing some something good, hopefully, and if they're pressuring you over the phone, sometimes they might pressure you and say, well, I'll lose my commission. All right, you're supposed to be given to an individual and you've got these cold callers, sometimes you just feel bad for the cold caller themselves, which I obviously that makes sense. But again, it'd be nice if your money is going to a charity to do the research on it. So any case, be wary about how a donation is requested. Taxpayers shouldn't work with charities that ask for donations by giving numbers from a gift card or by wiring money. So if they want the money in such a way that it's not traceable, then that seems funny, that seems unusual. There's something wrong there. That should be a pretty large flag that is bright red. It's a red flag that's waving. So that's the scam. It's safest to pay by credit card or check. You're paying a charity. You might want to even the deduction on it. If you want the deduction on it, you want the paper trail. The paper trail is good here. You're not laundering money at this point. You're trying to you're trying to show the trail so that you could say, hey, look, I gave the money in case anybody has any questions about it. Not that it's any of your business, but any case and only after research in the chart, so don't give more than needed. Scammers are seeking money, but personal information can be just as valuable. Scammers should treat personal information like cash and not handed out to just anyone, never give out social security numbers, credit card numbers or PIN numbers, donors should only give limited financial information when the person is sure the charity is legitimate. Taxpayers who give money or goods to a charity may be able to claim a deduction. There's a link to that here on their federal tax return by reducing the amount of their taxable income if they itemize and don't take the standard deduction. However, for people itemizing to receive a deduction, taxpayers must donate to a qualified charity. This is the second part of a week long series of tips to raise awareness about identity theft, which will feature additional materials to help protect individuals, businesses and tax professionals from identity theft. The effort includes a webinar today titled Deeper Dive into Emerging Cyber Crimes in Crypto Tax Compliance. There's a link to that here. That sounds super interesting. Special information, graphics and a social media effort on Twitter. A Twitter effort is happening people and Facebook and YouTube. There's a whole social media storm of tax news out there on security awareness. Follow at IRS tax security and at IRS news and hashtag tax security on Twitter for the latest information. If you're not following on Twitter, you probably don't have the latest stuff. I'm not following on Twitter. I might start though. I looked him up a couple of days ago. I'm Twitter's I haven't done anything good on Twitter. But now that maybe now that Musk owns it, I'm still going to change. Twitter is going to start making me money. Dang it. Twitter is going to start making me money. Any case, you've also got IRS.gov forward slash security summit for more details. There's links to all that stuff here. There'll be a link to this in the description.