Five million dollars. That’s how much money the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) estimates that victims have lost to the most recent IRS phone scam. TIGTA has received 90,000 complaints about the scam through its telephone hotline. In March, J. Russell George, the Inspector General called it “the largest scam of its kind…
While taxpayers were popping returns into the mail this year, scammers were busy trying to figure out how to cash in. The Internal Revenue Service reported that, by Tax Day, they were investigating 1,800 active cases of identity theft investigations. Many of those cases involved millions of dollars each: just recently, a New York woman…
With the ink barely dry on tax returns, scammers are already reaching out to taxpayers.
Think that’s IRS on the phone demanding payment? Think again…
Those stories you’ve been seeing about tax-related crimes, investigations and convictions? They’re not just sensationalist. They’re real. And they’re part of a continuing trend by IRS to investigate financial crimes. Read what the annual report had to say about them…
Identity theft related tax fraud is one of the most serious concerns at IRS today. What’s being done about it? I talked to IRS-Criminal Investigations about ongoing efforts to get the bad guys and found out some surprising details about targets, enforcements and the staggering amounts of tax dollars involved.
Most of the government was shutdown mid-October – but that didn’t stop law enforcement from a massive take down in an ongoing effort to stamp out criminal tax fraud in South Florida.
With the IRS shut down, scammers are taking the opportunity to ramp up operations. Here’s what to be on the lookout for…
With tax fraud – especially identity theft related tax fraud – there can be huge dollars at stake. Criminals use that money to finance high-profile, high-spending lifestyles at taxpayer expense. But when their luck finally runs out, what happens next?
This week, Rashia Wilson received a record sentence for her role in a massive identity theft scam used to defraud the Treasury. Wilson, together with her boyfriend and colleague, used stolen identities to bilk the IRS out of nearly $20 million.