 Internal revenue service RIS tax news dirty dozen watch out for third-party promoters of false fuel tax credit claims Yeah, you got to watch out for those scammers man many of whom use tick tock to do their scamming I mean honestly like the level of scamming these days is so bad. It's it's raising many Americans eyebrows Unfortunately for many Americans They're their eyebrows. They never come back down again because like tick tock convinced them to become a woman and Apparently having your eyebrows permanently lifted like an inch or so on your forehead is part of the process Like I think maybe they're trying to emulate Nancy Pelosi's eyebrow style like in the top of their forehead or something But whatever Speaking of tick tock have you noticed the crony capitalism thing seems to be getting worse these days I mean, honestly, we've got like tick tock, which is some kind of communist spy app from China or something Which I'm all for cracking down on don't get me wrong however After the Twitter revelations about the government pressuring US social media companies to silence free speech and the evidence Pointed to equity algorithms being used unlike all of these social media platforms It becomes difficult to stand on firm ideological ground When calling out the commies these days, I'm just saying it's a little it becomes a little bit difficult We're kind of standing on a quicksand calling out the commies I mean, I mean I I think I think this whole crony capitalism thing is because politicians are generally miserable attention seeking power hungry deceivers and As we all know Misery loves companies Which is why the politicians keep getting in bed with the companies Which leads to the quote the crony capitalism problem and and then once you have the crony capitalism problem People argue that crony capitalism is the same thing as capitalism Which is really frustrating. I mean that's like that's like saying that caffeine free coffee is the same thing as coffee It's like no, no, it isn't like crony capitalism caffeine free coffee Doesn't work. I mean it's it. It's a fairly obvious but important distinction a Distinction one should not overlook Lest you accidentally reach for the caffeine free coffee just before you go visit like Bill Cosby or something Which could be a bad mistake Okay, okay Phil. I know that wasn't that wasn't funny Go ahead and edit that one out edit that one out Phil anyways the point is I like my capitalism like I like my coffee without a prefix I Are 2023-55 March 23rd 2023, Washington as part of this year's dirty dozen tax scams The internal revenue service today warned taxpayers to watch out for promoters pushing Improper fuel tax credit claims that taxpayers aren't qualified to receive the false fuel credit claims mark another important item on the IRS annual dirty dozen list on day four of the annual campaign quote People should watch out for erroneous fuel tax credit claims and the scammers that promote them end quote said IRS Commissioner Danny Warfell quote these scammers will often charge a hefty fee for these bogus claims and Participants also face the possibility of identity theft This is another example that people should always remember be wary if a tax deal sounds too good to be true in quote The dirty dozen is an annual IRS list of 12 scams and schemes that put taxpayers and the tax Professional community at risk of losing money personal data and more Some items on the list are new and some make a return of return visits while the list is not a legal document or a formal listing of agency enforcement Priorities it is intended to alert taxpayers businesses and tax preparers about scams at large as a member of the security summit The IRS with state tax agencies in the nation's tax industry have taken numerous steps over the last eight years to warn people to watch out for Common scams and schemes each tax season that can contribute to tax related identity theft. It's been working out great It's been where how long have been eight years the tax scammers? Have they been going up or down in terms of the amount of I don't anyways anyways along along with the security summit initiative the dirty dozen aims to protect taxpayers businesses in the tax system from Identity thieves and various hoaxes designed to steal money and information Beware of third-party promoters for the fuel tax credit and proper credits continue to be important area of focus for the IRS The fuel tax credit is meant to for off-highway business and form and use and as such is not available to most Taxpayers however unscrupulous tax return preparers and promoters are enticing taxpayers to inflate their refines by erroneously claiming the credit the IRS has seen an increase in the promotion of filing certain refundable credits using form 4136 credit for federal tax paid on fuels There's a link to that here and this scam a third party convinces a taxpayer to fraudulently claim the credit with promises of a Windfall refund so you would think the type of scenario here would be people are giving what they call tax advice and Order to get a greater refund and part of the process is they're probably saying hey look The IRS has been shooting money out for quite some time at this point in time with the stimulus payments They just want money out there at this point in time And so this is just one of those things where you can claim like this credit, right? And then basically they're going to charge for the time that they have this advice that they're giving and The sat the problem here is that the way the IRS often works is they might actually Send the refund they might actually get a refund for these types of things But the IRS still has three years to come back and audit the refund So the IRS is a slow-working mechanism type of things So so the fact that you might get a refund for this for this kind of scam because what they're looking for you Would think are types of scams that don't actually just automatically trigger the the delay of the refund So the scammer can say see look you've got your refund They can get paid and then they can leave before the audit happens within three years And if there's fraud involved it can be more than three years at the point in time an audit happens The taxpayers not going to be able to find the guy who who convinced them to do whatever they convinced them to do So you would think these kind of scams would generally fall around the idea that the scammers looking for types of things that aren't Automatic automatic catches from the iris side of things from just the system catching it in other words If you changed your W2 withholdings or if you changed you didn't report as much income as on a 1099 or something like that You would think that the the IRS would automatically Kind of question that without even manual entry into the system because they have documentation on their side to kind of check it So if you if you have these other kind of things, especially these weird Refundable credits and whatnot especially with the new laws that often are not vetted as clearly Then those are the types of things that that that could the iris won't catch Automatically, but they could come back and do the old traditional way Which is to audit and then get them in that format Okay So but the promoters are focused on their own gain taking advantage of the taxpayers with inflated fees refund fraud and identity theft taxpayers contemplating participating in any questionable tax scheme such as this should be aware the IRS has increased its compliance efforts related to falsely claiming of these credits IRS processing systems including new identity theft screening filters are now stopping a significant number of suspicious fuel tax credit refund claims before taking the bait on a dubious credit claim taxpayers should seek advice from a legitimate source Return filed by individuals and tax preparers who knowingly claim a credit to which they are not entitled may face Fines and even be subject to federal criminal prosecution and imprisonment. So there's that item of intention Was it you didn't know or was it an intentional thing intent? It's a difficult thing to prove but if there's intention in it Then then you would think the penalties would be higher help stop fraud and scams as part of the dirty dozen awareness effort The IRS encourages people to report individuals who promote improper and abusive tax schemes As well as tax return preparers who deliberately prepare improper returns to report an abusive tax scheme or a tax return Preparer people should mail or fax a completed form 14 to 4 to report suspected abusive tax Promotions or preparers. There's a link to that here and any supporting material to the IRS lead development center in the Office of Pro Vulture Investigations, there's an address you could check out here. It will be a link to this in the description Alternatively Taxpayers and tax practitioners may send the information to the IRS whistleblower office for possible monetary reward For more information see abusive tax schemes and abusive tax return preparers. There's links to all that stuff here There'll be a link to this in the description