Taxpayers should learn about these common tax scams

While scammers work hard during tax season to try to steal money, personal information and data, they also stay busy the rest of the year. Taxpayers should remain alert and aware of these common scams, schemes and cons to avoid losing money or personal information.

Social media: Fraudulent form filing and bad advice
Social media can circulate inaccurate or misleading tax information, and the IRS has recently seen schemes that encourage people to submit false, inaccurate information in hopes of getting a refund or taking advantage of a credit, such as the Employee Retention Credit. Taxpayers should always remember that if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Online Account help from third-party scammers
Swindlers pose as a “helpful” third party and offer to help create a taxpayer’s IRS Online Account at IRS.gov. The scammers making these offers are trying to steal a taxpayer’s personal information. Taxpayers should access their account directly through IRS.gov.

Phishing
Taxpayers should be alert to fake communications posing as legitimate organizations in the tax and financial community, including the IRS and the states. These messages arrive in the form of an unsolicited text or email to lure victims into providing valuable personal and financial information that can lead to identity theft.

Offer in compromise mills
Offers in compromise are an important program to help people who can’t pay to settle their federal tax debts. But “offer in compromise mills” can aggressively promote offers in compromise in misleading ways to people who clearly don’t meet the qualifications, often costing taxpayers thousands of dollars. A taxpayer can check their eligibility for free using the IRS Offer in Compromise Pre-Qualifier tool.