Filing taxes is a chore that many taxpayers leave until the last minute, but cybercriminals have been ready with countless scams from pretending to be IRS agents to offering fake refunds so they can gain your personal information.
Consumers continue to fall for tax scams because the emails are "so authentic looking" and figuring out which one is the real thing can be challenging, Joseph Carson, chief security scientist at Delinea, a Redwood City, Calif.-based provider of privileged access management solutions, told TheStreet.
DON'T MISS: Don't Fall For These Scams During Tax Season
Scammers are typically all after the same thing - they want your financial information to make money quickly.
"These scams are so prevalent because they work and it is quick, easy money for cyber criminals," he said.
Since fraudsters buy large lists of potential victims from the darknet, even if a small percentage of people fall for their phishing attacks where emails appear to resemble legitimate organizations, it is "still extremely profitable for the cyber criminals," Carson said.
Cybercriminals depend on people to fall for their tricks and their fear of potentially breaking the law, plus any financial penalties they could incur, which is why their "scare tactics continue to prove effective," he said.
Tax season is one opportunity that scammers can profit from, especially as more Americans do their own taxes online -92% of Americans e-filed their taxes in 2021, compared to 87% in 2016.
Fraudsters will send bogus TurboTax password resets or attempt to target people from robocalls. In 2022, 29% of Americans received robocalls that were IRS or tax-related, Clayton LiaBraaten, senior executive advisor at Truecaller,a Stockholm-based caller ID and spam-blocking app, told TheStreet.
"The IRS will not call you outside of an ongoing case for which you might be expecting communications," he said. "They will not call you out of the blue to collect back taxes or accelerate refunds and IRS representatives would never ask you to ‘fill in any blanks’ regarding personal information to verify your identity," he said
Instead, an IRS employee would only reference a case number that would have been provided via the mail.
Since the IRS has a lot of power and authority, scammers will take advantage of it. They can pretend to be from the IRS or state and local tax authorities.
"Scammers rely on fear and a sense of urgency," Alex Hamerstone, advisory solutions director at TrustedSec, a Fairlawn, Ohio-based ethical hacking and cyber incident response company, told TheStreet.
How to Avoid Tax Scammers
Using good email spam filters can halt and prevent scams from even making it into your inbox.
If you receive an email and are suspicious it is authentic, go directly to the IRS website and call the number to check if it is authentic, Carson said. The number provided within the email is most likely fake.
Check the email sender address and not the display name and look for spelling mistakes.
Consumers can also catch fraudsters by checking hyperlink addresses by hovering over them to see where they send you instead of clicking on the links
"Check your personal details for accuracy," he said. "These simple tips can help avoid a potential cyber security nightmare."
Always be suspicious of any “IRS” phone calls, Hamerstone said.
"Any calls where there is a computer-generated voice are a scam 100% of the time."
The IRS does not accept payments via gift cards.
"Any time someone is asking you to buy gift cards and send them the codes, it is a scam," he said. "Keep in mind that scammers have access to a lot of information, so just because someone who calls you has accurate personal information about you does not mean that they are legitimate."
Unless you have scheduled a call with the IRS or a state taxing authority, do not respond to a phone call or email with anyone claiming to be from those agencies, Timothy Morris, chief security advisor at Tanium, a Kirkland, Washington-based provider of converged endpoint management, told TheStreet.
Instead, request a case number and call back one of the official numbers, he said.
Tax authorities will never demand an immediate payment online, but fraudsters will usually fabricate a false deadline to collect an imaginary refund or to avoid a non-existent tax penalty, Mika Aalto, CEO at Hoxhunt, a Helsinki-based provider of enterprise security awareness solutions, told TheStreet.
"They will certainly not demand payment via cryptocurrency or gift cards or instruct an urgent payment over the phone," he said. "If you find yourself feeling immense pressure to act immediate deadline from an email from a supposed tax authority, take a breath and investigate the sender field and hover over the link you’re being pushed to click."
What To Do If You're a Tax Fraud Victim
If you are the victim of a scam and your social security number was compromised as part of the identity theft, start by filing a Form 14039 Identity Theft Affidavit with the IRS to "notify them of this incident so that they can reduce the risk of tax identity theft," Chris Pierson, CEO of BlackCloak, an Orlando, Florida-based digital executive protection company, told TheStreet..
You can also request an Identity Protection Pin from the IRS, which is a six-digit number that prevents someone from filing a tax return using your social security number.
"It will be used by your tax preparer when filing your tax return to confirm it is actually you," he said.
