There are a lot of scams going around these days and scammers are taking advantage of every form of technology to try and steal your identity and your financial information. Some scammers will call you stating you owe the IRS and that they will send a sheriff to arrest you if you do not pay the balance immediately. This can be a very frightening phone call to receive, especially if you do in fact owe the IRS.
For the most part, the IRS won’t actually contact you via phone. However, there are special circumstances where the IRS can contact you via phone. Prior to receiving a phone call from an agent, you should have received some form of communication from the IRS via mail stating that you owe a balance. There are special circumstances here as well: Let’s say that you haven’t filed in the past 3 years and just moved last year. In this case, the latest address the IRS has on file for you would be what is listed on the return you filed 4 years ago i.e., your old address. If this is the case, the IRS may be sending notices to your old address without you knowing about it and thus, your first notification of an issue with the IRS might actually be receiving that phone call from an IRS agent. The good news is there are ways to tell if you are speaking with an IRS agent or a scam artist. Typically, a scam artist will threaten to send police over if you do not pay right now. They will also offer other payment options perhaps through a gift card of some sort. If you owe the IRS and they have gone through all of the proper notifications to the taxpayer, they will simply levy your bank account or wages – they won’t threaten police involvement if you do not pay immediately. They also do not currently accept target gift cards as a payment option.
If you aren’t sure if you actually owe taxes or what kind of collection action the IRS may take against, call us today and we can help you sort through what is fact and what is a scam. It is better to be too safe then risk your financial information. Call us today at 844-841-9857 or click below to schedule a free consultation.
How To Know If It's the IRS Calling You
Posted by
Cailey Taylor on Jun 7, 2018 10:42:00 AM
Tags: Tax Help, Identity Theft, Tax Scams