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Friday, January 22, 2016

IDENTITY THEFT- Tax Identity Theft Awareness Week

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has announced next week, January 25-29, as Tax Identity Theft Awareness Week.

With tax season on us, ID thieves and scammers are in high gear to take your money through fraud. Tax fraud is a big problem for the IRS and for tax payers. Scammers use two methods to get to your money through the IRS. One way is to obtain your personal information, name, address, social security number, and file an income tax return as you, then obtain a refund from the IRS. The other way is to pose as an IRS agent in a phone call or email to you and demand immediate payment of a bogus fine or owed taxes. According to the US Treasury Department, it has received 900,000 reports of IRS scam calls since October of 2013.

Tax Identity Theft Awareness Week is an attempt to educate everyone about these threats.

Note- There has been an increasing effort to educate the public about IRS scams. The federal government loses money as well as victimized citizens. You can help by learning all that you can about the IRS scams and pass this information onto your family, neighbors and friends.

FTC:


 
CBS:


 

 

 

2 comments:

  1. Yes. Some education seminars or any other activities should be held so that people will be aware of these scams. There have been so many reports and warnings about these IRS scams that I can find mostly at sites like http://whycall.me. However, not all people have access to read those warnings, so it will be good if such seminars could be held.

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  2. A good resource is AARP's Fraud Watch Network (http://www.aarp.org/money/scams-fraud/fraud-watch-network/). They periodically conduct seminars in the state to talk about ID theft and cyber security. Scammers frequently target vulnerable populations such as the elderly and immigrants. Its important to pass this information to those who may not normally see this information.

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