{"id":3623,"date":"2020-07-19T17:03:30","date_gmt":"2020-07-19T17:03:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/patellawoffices.com\/blog\/?p=3623"},"modified":"2020-07-24T17:05:33","modified_gmt":"2020-07-24T17:05:33","slug":"irs-new-dirty-dozen-list-of-tax-scams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/patellawoffices.com\/blog\/planning-for-tax-minimization\/irs-new-dirty-dozen-list-of-tax-scams\/","title":{"rendered":"IRS’ New “Dirty Dozen” list of tax scams"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Internal Revenue Service\nannounced on July 16, 2020, its annual “Dirty\nDozen” list<\/a> of tax scams. This year, the Dirty Dozen focused on scams\nthat target taxpayers, and emphasized aggressive and evolving schemes related\nto coronavirus tax relief, including Economic Impact Payments (also known as\ntax stimulus payments).  The list is notably different from\nprior versions given the absence of several typical IRS enforcement and\ncompliance priorities, but the IRS indicated that a wholly separate enforcement\nand compliance priorities list is forthcoming.  Some selected new scams include:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Senior Fraud:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Senior\ncitizens and those who care about them need to be on alert for tax scams\ntargeting older Americans. The IRS recognizes the pervasiveness of fraud\ntargeting older Americans along with the Department of Justice and FBI, the\nFederal Trade Commission, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB),\namong others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Seniors\nare more likely to be targeted and victimized by scammers than other segments\nof society. Financial abuse of seniors is a problem among personal and\nprofessional relationships. Anecdotal evidence across professional services\nindicates that elder fraud goes down substantially when the service provider\nknows a trusted friend or family member is taking an interest in the senior’s\naffairs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Older\nAmericans are becoming more comfortable with evolving technologies, such as\nsocial media. Unfortunately, that gives scammers another means of taking\nadvantage. Phishing scams linked to Covid-19 have been a major threat this\nfiling season. Seniors need to be alert for a continuing surge of fake emails,\ntext messages, websites and social media attempts to steal personal\ninformation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scams targeting non-English speakers:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

IRS\nimpersonators and other scammers also target groups with limited English proficiency.\nThese scams are often threatening in nature. Some scams also target those\npotentially receiving an Economic Impact Payment and request personal or\nfinancial information from the taxpayer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Phone\nscams pose a major threat to people with limited access to information,\nincluding individuals not entirely comfortable with the English language. These\ncalls frequently take the form of a “robocall” (a text-to-speech\nrecorded message with instructions for returning the call), but in some cases\nmay be made by a real person. These con artists may have some of the taxpayer’s\ninformation, including their address, the last four digits of their Social\nSecurity number or other personal details \u2013 making the phone calls seem more\nlegitimate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A\ncommon one remains the IRS impersonation scam where a taxpayer receives a\ntelephone call threatening jail time, deportation or revocation of a driver’s\nlicense from someone claiming to be with the IRS. Taxpayers who are recent\nimmigrants often are the most vulnerable and should ignore these threats and\nnot engage the scammers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Offer in Compromise Mills:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Taxpayers\nneed to wary of misleading tax debt resolution companies that can exaggerate\nchances to settle tax debts for “pennies on the dollar” through an\nOffer in Compromise (OIC). These offers are available for taxpayers who meet\nvery specific criteria under law to qualify for reducing their tax bill. But\nunscrupulous companies oversell the program to unqualified candidates so they\ncan collect a hefty fee from taxpayers already struggling with debt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These\nscams are commonly called OIC “mills,” which cast a wide net for\ntaxpayers, charge them pricey fees and churn out applications for a program\nthey’re unlikely to qualify for. Although the OIC program helps thousands of\ntaxpayers each year reduce their tax debt, not everyone qualifies for an OIC.\nIn Fiscal Year 2019, there were 54,000 OICs submitted to the IRS. The agency\naccepted 18,000 of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Individual\ntaxpayers can use the free online Offer in Compromise Pre-Qualifier tool to see\nif they qualify. The simple tool allows taxpayers to confirm eligibility and\nprovides an estimated offer amount. Taxpayers can apply for an OIC without\nthird-party representation; but the IRS reminds taxpayers that if they need\nhelp, they should be cautious about whom they hire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While an OIC can offer very good tax relief to many of our\nclients, people need to be vigilant against \u201ctoo good to be true\u201d pennies-on-the-dollar\nrelief scams.  People should talk to\nlicensed professionals to get help.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Internal Revenue Service announced on July 16, 2020, its annual “Dirty Dozen” list of tax scams. This year, the Dirty Dozen focused on scams that target taxpayers, and emphasized aggressive and evolving schemes related to coronavirus tax relief, including Economic Impact Payments (also known as tax stimulus payments).  The list is notably different from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_daextam_enable_autolinks":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-planning-for-tax-minimization"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/patellawoffices.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/patellawoffices.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/patellawoffices.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patellawoffices.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patellawoffices.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3623"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/patellawoffices.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3623\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3624,"href":"https:\/\/patellawoffices.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3623\/revisions\/3624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/patellawoffices.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patellawoffices.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patellawoffices.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}