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Video: Watch Out for Tax Scams: English
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IR-2009-71, August 4, 2009
WASHINGTON - The Internal Revenue Service reminds consumers to avoid identity
theft scams that use the IRS name, logo or Web site in an attempt to convince
taxpayers that the scam is a genuine communication from the IRS. Scammers may
use other federal agency names, such as the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
In an identity theft scam, a fraudster, often posing as a trusted government,
financial or business institution or official, tries to trick a victim into
revealing personal and financial information, such as credit card numbers and
passwords, bank account numbers and passwords, Social Security numbers and more.
Generally, identity thieves use someone’s personal data to steal his or her
financial accounts, run up charges on the victim’s existing credit cards, apply
for new loans, credit cards, services or benefits in the victim’s name and even
file fraudulent tax returns.
The scams may take place through e-mail, fax or phone. When they take place
via e-mail, they are called “phishing” scams.
The IRS does not discuss tax account matters with taxpayers by e-mail.
The IRS urges consumers to avoid falling for the following recent
schemes:
Making Work Pay Refund
This phishing e-mail, which claims to come from the IRS, references the
president and the Making Work
Pay provision of the 2009
economic recovery law. It says that there is a refundable credit available
to workers, consumers and retirees that can be paid into the recipient’s bank
account if the recipient registers their account information with the IRS. The
e-mail contains links to register the account and to claim the tax refund.
In reality, most taxpayers receive their Making Work Pay tax credit, which
was designed for wage earners, in their paychecks as a result of decreased tax
withholding, not as a lump sum distribution from a federal fund. Additionally,
consumers and retirees who are not wage earners are not eligible for this tax
credit.
Inherited Funds / Lottery Winnings / Cash Consignment
In this phishing scheme, recipients receive an e-mail claiming to come from
the U.S. Department of the Treasury notifying them that they will receive
millions of dollars in recovered funds or lottery winnings or cash consignment
if they provide certain personal information, including phone numbers, via
return e-mail. The e-mail may be just the first step in a multi-step scheme, in
which the victim is later contacted by telephone or further e-mail and
instructed to deposit taxes on the funds or winnings before they can receive any
of it. Alternatively, they may be sent a phony check of the funds or winnings
and told to deposit it but pay 10 percent in taxes or fees. Thinking that the
check must have cleared the bank and is genuine, some people comply. However,
the scammers, not the Treasury Department, will get the taxes or fees.
Form W-8BEN
In this scam, fraudsters modify a genuine IRS form, the W-8BEN, Certificate of Foreign Status of
Beneficial Owner for United States Tax Withholding, to request detailed personal
and financial information. This could include nationality, passport number, bank
account and PIN numbers, spouse’s name and mother’s maiden name, or other
personal or financial information or security measures for financial accounts.
The scammers may use the genuine form number and name or may make up a new form
number, such as W-4100B2.
They either e-mail or fax the form or letter. If only a letter, the letter
itself contains the request for the personal and financial information. The
letter, which claims to come from the IRS, states that the recipient will face
additional taxes unless he or she quickly faxes the required information to the
number provided by the scammer.
In reality, taxpayers file the genuine Form W-8BEN with their financial
institutions, not with the IRS. Additionally, the genuine W-8BEN does not
request the taxpayer’s passport number, bank account number, security or similar
information.
Refund Scam
The bogus e-mail, which claims to come from the IRS, tells the recipient that
he or she is eligible to receive a tax refund for a given amount. It instructs
the recipient to click on a link contained in the e-mail to access and complete
a form for the tax refund. The form requires the entry of personal and financial
information. The refund scam is the most common one seen by the IRS. Several
recent variations on this scam have claimed to come from the Exempt
Organizations area of the IRS. Some others have included the name and purported
signature of a genuine or a made-up IRS executive.
Taxpayers do not have to complete a special form to obtain a refund. Taxpayer
refunds are based on the tax return they submit to the IRS.
How to Spot a Scam
Many e-mail scams are fairly sophisticated and hard to detect. However, there
are signs to watch for, such as an e-mail that:
- Requests detailed or an unusual amount of personal and/or financial
information, such as name, SSN, bank or credit card account numbers or
security-related information, such as mother’s maiden name, either in the e-mail
itself or on another site to which a link in the e-mail sends the
recipient.
- Dangles bait to get the recipient to respond to the e-mail, such as
mentioning a tax refund or offering to pay the recipient to participate in an
IRS survey.
- Threatens a consequence for not responding to the e-mail, such as additional
taxes or blocking access to the recipient’s funds.
- Gets the Internal Revenue Service or other federal agency names
wrong.
- Uses incorrect grammar or odd phrasing (many of the e-mail scams originate
overseas and are written by non-native English speakers).
- Uses a really long address in any link contained in the e-mail message or
one that does not start with the actual IRS Web site address (www.irs.gov). To
see the actual link address, or url, move the mouse over the link included in
the text of the e-mail.
What to Do
The IRS does not initiate taxpayer contact via unsolicited e-mail or ask for
personal identifying or financial information via e-mail. If you receive a
suspicious e-mail claiming to come from the IRS, take the following steps:
- Do not open any attachments to the e-mail, in case they contain malicious
code that will infect your computer.
- Do not click on any links, for the same reason. Also, be aware that the
links often connect to a phony IRS Web site that appears authentic and then
prompts the victim for personal identifiers, bank or credit card account numbers
or PINs. The phony Web sites appear legitimate because the appearance and much
of the content are directly copied from an actual page on the IRS Web site and
then modified by the scammers for their own purposes.
- Contact the IRS at 1-800-829-1040 to determine whether the IRS is trying to
contact you.
- Forward the suspicious e-mail or url address to the IRS mailbox phishing@irs.gov, then delete the e-mail from
your inbox.
Genuine IRS Web site
The only genuine IRS Web site is IRS.gov. All IRS.gov Web page addresses
begin with http://www.irs.gov/. Anyone wishing
to access the IRS Web site should initiate contact by typing the IRS.gov address
into their Internet address window, rather than clicking on a link in an
e-mail.
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