It’s tax time regardless of which state you call home: the tax man cometh.
As in past years, criminals see this annual ritual as an opportunity combining emotion, anxiety, fear, anger (or at least dissatisfaction) and a sense of civic duty. Tax scams appear in email messages linked to phony websites and intrude as urgent phone calls or text messages. They alert us to tax payment, refund or taxpayer record issues.
Regardless of the delivery method, the message commonality is urgency, and the issues are somewhat similar: a problem with your taxpayer account, failure to pay your entire tax bill, unauthorized access to your tax records or a tax refund in jeopardy. Frequently, the recipient is anxious, frightened, angry or concerned and falls under what the scammer refers to as “the ether,” a heightened sense of anxiety.
Often, the message includes a threat of fines or imprisonment, thus adding a strong element of fear. Emotion is the taxpayer’s enemy and the criminal’s ally. Avoiding the ether requires the intended victim to maintain or restore rationality, logic and reason. Step back, take a deep breath, think out the situation and don’t succumb to the sense of urgency that is conveyed by the criminal. The Internal Revenue Service and state tax authorities do not threaten. Typically, a message from the IRS does not give people a warm…
