These Folks Are Simply Relentless

As one who received a fair amount of spam both written and verbal, you can imagine I’ve fielded one or two calls from folks in downtown Bangalore or Mumbai pretending to be from the Internal Revenue Service and demanding immediate payment for unpaid taxes.

As opposed to those unfortunate souls who have been scammed into tendering their credit cards for tax liens they obviously didn’t owe – I like to have fun with these dolts – asking basic questions such as why are they calling when the IRS always sends letters? Or how is “so and so” who works in your department? The stammering on the other end – complete with a foreign accent and followed by an abrupt hang up – always puts a smile to my morning.

However, these scamsters may be getting smarter.

Recently the IRS has issued a warning to taxpayers and tax practitioners about an email “phishing” scam that impersonates IRS officials with subject lines like “Automatic Income Tax Reminder” or “Electronic Tax Return Reminder”.

The emails include links that show an IRS.gov-like website with details purporting to be about the taxpayer’s refund, electronic return or tax account. The emails contain a "temporary password" or "one-time password" to "access" the files to submit the refund.

But when taxpayers try to get access, it turns out to be malware-laden file where the scammers can get control of a taxpayer’s computer or secretly download software that tracks every keystroke, eventually giving them access to passwords to sensitive accounts, such as financial accounts.

So, they have apparently graduated from phone calls to more sophisticated cyber-crime.

Meanwhile closer to home – at least to me – some residents of New York have been receiving official-looking letters citing an “outstanding tax debt of $12,444” – that demand immediate payment under threat of revoking their driver’s license or passport.

I don’t have any updated information about how many residents of the Empire State have fallen for this latest ruse, but even I know that any letter from the IRS or state tax agency also includes a section on taxpayer’s rights and the requisite procedure to challenge a claim.

But should I ever receive a letter like this one, I would be a bit tempted to write back and ask how they arrived at the $12,444 figure. Then I’ll add that’s how exactly much I pay to keep an attorney on retainer just to sue tax scammers.