Tax scams begin with your phone ringing or your phone notifying you of an email. The caller or email sender may pretend to be speaking from the IRS and demand money immediately. Aggressive and threatening tax scam callers scare and try stealing money from millions in the US alone. Some may even appear in person and knock on your door. 

All of this may seem scary, but being aware of your rights can make all the difference. Regardless of the many scammers in the country, you can keep your money safe by learning about them. If scammers have already taken much of your personal information and you have realized it too late, inform the authorities right now. For your next time, hire tax preparation in Poughkeepsie. 

Common tax scams 

• Employment and payroll tax fraud. 

Payroll tax fraud is one of the most common types of tax fraud nowadays. Fraudsters do this by underreporting the number of employees in the company, collecting payroll taxes, and keeping them for themselves. Paying employees in cash illegally so that it does not show on paper is also one of the many fraud schemes investigated by the IRS. 

• Phishing emails asking to verify information. 

Phishing is a scam email designed to scare you into giving your money or personal information. The email might ask you to send your private information in a threatening tone or on an “urgent” basis. The email may contain a link, clicking on which may lead you to something that looks like the IRS website but is fake. You can protect yourself by checking whether the site has “.gov” in its web address. 

• Phone scams. 

Phony IRS agents do phone scams. They may use aggressive language and threaten you with police arrest, deportation, or immediate criminal action. In fact, if you get a call and the person starts using such language out of the blue, they are a fraudster. Make sure not to give your personal information to these callers. Instead, report it to the police. 

• A tax refund was filed under your name. 

When someone else filed a tax refund under your name without your knowledge, it is a form of identity theft. This is an easy scam as it does not require any documents. All they need is your full name, Social Security number, and date of birth. When you go to file, the IRS may alert you that someone else has already filed as you. To protect yourself, you can set an Identity Protection PIN (IP PIN).