Thousands of people have lost money and personal information to tax scams. Scammers use regular mail, phone and email to trick individuals, businesses, payroll providers and tax professionals.

In this edition

• Coalition to combat tax scams and schemes
• Recognize scams and schemes
• Tips for taxpayers
• Tips for businesses
• Tips for tax professionals
• How you can avoid tax scams and schemes
• Related information

Coalition to combat tax scams and schemes

The IRS, state tax agencies and the tax industry stood up a new task force called Coalition Against Scam and Scheme Threats (CASST) to combat the growth of scams and schemes threatening taxpayers and tax systems. The effort follows increased scams and schemes during the past filing season that aimed to exploit vulnerable taxpayers while enriching fraudsters and promoters.

CASST announcement

Recognize scams and schemes

Click on image to play IRS YouTube video: Here's what to know about tax scams

The best way to avoid falling prey to misleading tax advice is to get reliable tax information from a trusted source.

• Follow IRS on social media
• Visit an IRS walk-in center
• Talk to a trusted tax professional

What to know, what to do

Tips for taxpayers

Getting a call, text or letter that claims to be from the IRS, or seeing information online about a big tax refund, might be a scam or just bad tax advice. The IRS urges taxpayers to look out for:

• A big payday — if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is
• Threats or urgent requests to pay right now or else, or to pay in a specific way
• Misspellings and grammatical errors
• Links, attachments or odd URLs — all trusted IRS links go to irs.gov

Recognize tax scams and fraud

Tips for businesses

The IRS issued alerts about a series of scams and inaccurate social media advice including misleading guidance to claim existing and nonexistent tax credits. The IRS urges taxpayers to stay vigilant to unsolicited emails or texts and to avoid clicking any links or attachments if they are uncertain of its source.

Protect your business

Tips for tax professionals

The IRS and the Security Summit partners urge tax professionals to stay alert against tax-related scams, schemes and identity theft. To help the tax professional community and their clients, the partners highlight tips on how tax pros can avoid these threats to protect clients and themselves in the annual summer campaign Protect Your Clients; Protect Yourself.

Protect your clients; Protect yourself

How you can avoid tax scams and schemes

• Refer to irs.gov for official tax information
• Make sure it’s the IRS reaching out: See how to know if it’s really the IRS contacting you or give the IRS a call
• Protect yourself and your information: Get an Identity Protection PIN and establish an IRS Online Account
• If you were scammed  — report it

Find out more on irs.gov/tax-scams

Related information

 

• Tax scams
• Recognize tax scams and fraud
• If you were scammed
• Report a tax scam or fraud
• Know the warning signs of a tax scam
• Protect Your Clients; Protect Yourself
• IRS warns against scams targeting seniors; joins other federal agencies to recognize special awareness day
• IRS warns taxpayers they may be scam victims if they filed for big refunds; misleading advice leads to false claims for Fuel Tax Credit, Sick and Family Leave Credit, household employment taxes
• National Small Business Week: IRS warns entrepreneurs to take precautions on data security; protect their businesses, employees, customers
• Protect your business against data loss and fraud
• IRS reminds car dealers and sellers to be aware of phishing scams
• IRS warns of new scam targeting Clean energy tax credit
• Tax pros: Know the potential signs of a data breach
• IRS Online Account and identity protection PINs protect against identity thieves and scammers

Scam safety tip: Follow IRS verified social media accounts and subscribe to e-news services