{"id":9402,"date":"2017-02-02T14:25:11","date_gmt":"2017-02-02T22:25:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.taraval.org\/?p=9402"},"modified":"2017-02-08T07:18:37","modified_gmt":"2017-02-08T15:18:37","slug":"warning-its-tax-season-again-watch-out-for-tax-scams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taraval.org\/?p=9402","title":{"rendered":"Warning: It&#8217;s Tax Season Again, Watch Out for Tax Scams!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: 16px;\"><strong>Pretending to be\u00a0IRS<\/strong><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #000000;\"> Criminals may masquerade as IRS agents in person, over the phone, via email, or even through the mail. These scams typically rely on threats of legal action against the victim and requiring immediate payment to the &#8220;IRS agent.&#8221; \u00a0Legitimate IRS Agents will never require payment directly to the agent. Additionally, the IRS will first contact you by mail and will not require a specific type of payment.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong>False Tax Returns<\/strong><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #000000;\"> Suspects may also file false income tax returns using stolen identity information. This information may be purchased from a dark net market. Refunds are sent to pre-paid cards. Victims are unaware until they attempt to file their actual returns.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong>Pretending to be\u00a0a Tax Preparer<\/strong><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #000000;\"> Criminals may also pretend to be tax preparers. They may:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">\u00a0Call\u00a0homes and offer free or discounted services.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">\u00a0Create fake websites and convince victims to enter their personal information.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">\u00a0Post fake phone numbers in online ads to get victims to call them<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Fake tax preparers may also set up fake physical locations.\u00a0Only trust reputable tax preparation companies!<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong>Stealing IRS PIN<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Identity Protection Personal Identification Numbers (PINs) were created by the IRS to give confirmed identity theft victims a way to verify their tax information. Unfortunately, thieves can also\u00a0access a person&#8217;s PIN to file a return by using other\/ additional stolen personal information. The PIN can also\u00a0be accessed by:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<ul>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Stealing IRS PIN notification from the mail<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Using the online retrieval tool using knowledge-based identifiers<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Brute force (trying a list of PINs in the system)<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/ul>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">File returns early and report lost or stolen PINs!<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong>Resources for Victims<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<ul>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">If your identity is stolen and the information is used in a tax-related fraud, <a style=\"color: #000000;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.irs.gov\/uadtaxpayer-guide-to-identity-theft.\">https:\/\/www.irs.gov\/uadtaxpayer-guide-to-identity-theft.<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">For additional descriptions of common tax-related scams, visit<a style=\"color: #000000;\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irs.gov\/uadnewsroorn\/irs-releases-the-dirtv-dozen-tax-scams-for-2014-identity-theft-phone-scams-lead-list.\" href=\"https:\/\/www.irs.gov\/uadnewsroorn\/irs-releases-the-dirtv-dozen-tax-scams-for-2014-identity-theft-phone-scams-lead-list.\"><u> https:\/\/<\/u>www.irs.gov\/uadnewsroorn\/irs-releases-the-dirtv-dozen-tax-scams-for<u>-2014-identity-theft-phone-scams-lead-list.<\/u><\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">For more on how to choose a tax return preparer, how to report fraud activity, common scams, and tax fraud investigations, visit<\/span><u> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/tax\/program-shut-down-schemes-and-scams\">https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/tax\/program-shut-down-schemes-and-scams<\/a><\/u><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/ul>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Pretending to be\u00a0IRS Criminals may masquerade as IRS agents in person, over the phone, via email, or even through the mail. These scams typically rely on threats of legal action against the victim and requiring immediate payment to the &#8220;IRS&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taraval.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taraval.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taraval.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taraval.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taraval.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9402"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.taraval.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9402\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9409,"href":"https:\/\/www.taraval.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9402\/revisions\/9409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taraval.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taraval.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taraval.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}