Government Reports IRS Impersonation Complaints Have Increased

Posted on September 19, 2016

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you already know that many individuals pretending to be IRS employees have scammed taxpayers out of millions of dollars. A scammer contacts a taxpayer and pretends to be an IRS employee. The scammer then tries to get the taxpayer to pay a fake tax bill.

According to Timothy Camus, a Deputy Inspector General for Investigations at the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA), the IRS impersonation scam is the “largest thing I’ve ever seen” during his 25-year career. The TIGTA phone scam hotline has received over 1.5 million complaints.

Worse yet, over 8,000 victims have been scammed out of $47 million dollars by IRS impersonators. Disturbingly, the IRS impersonation scams have not slowed down despite increased law enforcement efforts. Before April of 2016, the phone scam hotline received between 9,000 and 12,000 new complaints per week.

As of August of 2016, the phone scam hotline received 34,000 telephone calls regarding IRS impersonation scammers. There were approximately 50 victims of IRS scammers each week prior to April of 2016. However, as of August of 2016, there are now 120 victims of IRS impersonation scams each week.

Have you been the victim or attempted victim of an IRS telephone scam? We have received dozens of fake calls from IRS scammers. If yes, you should immediately report the telephone call to TIGTA, the IRS and your local police department. If you truly do have an IRS problem such as an ongoing audit, please contact us, we can help.