Special Edition Outreach Connection FY24-09
What to know and do about tax-related scams and schemes
Thousands of people have lost money and personal information to tax scams. Scammers use regular mail, phone and email to trick individuals, businesses, payroll providers and tax professionals.
In this edition
 The IRS, state tax agencies and the tax industry stood up a new task force called Coalition Against Scam and Scheme Threats (CASST) to combat the growth of scams and schemes threatening taxpayers and tax systems. The effort follows increased scams and schemes during the past filing season that aimed to exploit vulnerable taxpayers while enriching fraudsters and promoters.
 Click on image to play IRS YouTube video: Here's what to know about tax scams
The best way to avoid falling prey to misleading tax advice is to get reliable tax information from a trusted source.
 Getting a call, text or letter that claims to be from the IRS, or seeing information online about a big tax refund, might be a scam or just bad tax advice. The IRS urges taxpayers to look out for:
- A big payday — if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is
- Threats or urgent requests to pay right now or else, or to pay in a specific way
- Misspellings and grammatical errors
- Links, attachments or odd URLs — all trusted IRS links go to irs.gov
 The IRS issued alerts about a series of scams and inaccurate social media advice including misleading guidance to claim existing and nonexistent tax credits. The IRS urges taxpayers to stay vigilant to unsolicited emails or texts and to avoid clicking any links or attachments if they are uncertain of its source.
 The IRS and the Security Summit partners urge tax professionals to stay alert against tax-related scams, schemes and identity theft. To help the tax professional community and their clients, the partners highlight tips on how tax pros can avoid these threats to protect clients and themselves in the annual summer campaign Protect Your Clients; Protect Yourself.
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