IRS Warns Taxpayers To Be Diligent As Identity Thieves Add New Twist To Phone Scam

For the past several years, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has been encouraging taxpayers to file their returns electronically. That’s why it came as a shock to John* (not his real name) when he received a phone call (allegedly) from the IRS advising him that he needed to file his federal income tax return by mail. The reason? He was (allegedly) the victim of identity theft and as a result, he was not eligible to file electronically: the return and the payment were to be filed by regular mail. That was the first of a series of communications (allegedly) from the IRS. A subsequent phone call purported to be from IRS Criminal Investigations (IRS-CI) and asked that John return the call to discuss the identity theft. He was also advised that he would be served with a summons at his home if he ignored these communications. The efforts to reach John were pretty persistent: at least once, IRS Criminal Investigations (allegedly) left a voice mail for John and asked that he call back immediately. John saved the message and played the call for me at his office. Despite the official sounding lingo, John figured out pretty easily that this was a scam. But it sure sounded real.