Tax season is here, along with tax scammers

Tax season is upon us once again, and along with it comes tax scams. Every year these scammers become more and more creative in finding tactics to rip off citizens. We spoke with a local woman who has already received a tax scam voicemail.

That woman, Angela Poff, called into ABC 17 explaining she received a strange voicemail. “Well, I had gotten a strange number on my phone and I was at work, so I didn’t answer it,” she said.

We later learned from Poff, that the strange voicemail was from someone who said they were from the IRS and they were filing a lawsuit against her. We asked if the voicemail frightened her.

“Yes, especially, when they say lawsuit against you, that’s kinda scary. And with the identity theft and all that kind of stuff and whatever you know, you never know what people can do,” she said.

We spoke to Detective Tom O’Sullivan to find out how citizens can keep themselves safe from scammers during this year’s tax season. “If you pick up the phone, and somebody tells you they’re from the IRS, immediately hang up,” he said. “It’s a scam. The IRS does not call people about taxes problems.”

We also asked Detective O’Sullivan if there are any new scam twists this year, and he said, “It’s still early,” he said. “I mean a lot of people haven’t even gotten their W2s yet, but I anticipate that we’ll be getting calls from citizens about these IRS scams.”

We later looked to the IRS website, which is where you can find out more information about common scam tactics if you find yourself concerned about a possible tax scam. Some of the common tactics are as follows: telephone scams, emails, phishing and malware schemes.