HARLINGEN — The Harlingen Police Department is alerting the public to a recent and new phone scam perpetrated by IRS impersonators.
Telephone scams continue to be a serious threat and remain on the IRS “Dirty Dozen” list of Tax Scams for the 2016 filing season.
According to the IRS, aggressive and threatening phone calls made by criminals impersonating IRS agents remains a major threat to taxpayers during this 2016 tax season.
Even though the tax deadline has come and gone, scammers continue to use varied strategies to trick people, in this case students. In this newest twist, they try to convince people to wire money immediately to the scammer.
If the victim does not fall quickly enough for this fake “federal student tax,” the scammer threatens to report the student to the police.
The IRS has seen a surge of these types of telephone scams where scam artists are threatening police arrest, deportation, license revocation and other things.
The police department along with the IRS reminds taxpayers to guard against all sorts of scams or con-games that arise during this season.
“These scams and schemes continue to evolve nationwide, and now they’re trying to trick students,” said IRS Commissioner John Koskinen.
“Taxpayers should remain vigilant and not fall prey to these aggressive calls demanding immediate payment of a tax supposedly owed.”
Scam artists frequently masquerade as being from the IRS, a tax company and sometimes even a state revenue department. Many scammers use threats to intimidate and bully people into paying a tax bill.
They may even threaten to arrest, deport or revoke the driver’s license of their victim if they don’t get the money.
Some examples of the varied tactics seen this year are:
* Demanding immediate tax payment for taxes owed on an iTunes gift card.
* Soliciting W-2 information from payroll and human resources professionals — IR-2016-34
* “Verifying” tax return information over the phone — IR-2016-40
* Pretending to be from the tax preparation industry — IR-2016-28
There are variations to this particular type scam which may include, but are not limited to the following.
* Caller may threaten you with arrest or court action to trick you into making a payment.
* Caller may threaten deportation if a payment is not made.
* Some schemes may say that you’re entitled to a huge refund.
Protect Yourself — If you receive a phone call from someone claiming to be from the IRS and asking for payment or money and you don’t to think that you do:
* Do not give out any personal information. Hang up immediately.
* Contact the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) to report the call (using “IRS Impersonation Scam Reporting”)
* Report it to the Federal Trade Commission (add “IRS Telephone Scam”)
* Report to local Law Enforcement if needed.
