{"id":100556,"date":"2018-04-04T07:50:21","date_gmt":"2018-04-04T12:50:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thevwindependent.com\/news\/?p=100556"},"modified":"2018-04-04T07:50:21","modified_gmt":"2018-04-04T12:50:21","slug":"dewine-watch-out-for-irs-tax-scams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2018\/04\/04\/dewine-watch-out-for-irs-tax-scams\/","title":{"rendered":"DeWine: Watch out for IRS tax scams"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Submitted information<\/em><\/p>\n<p>COLUMBUS &#8212; Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine warns that more consumers are reporting tax scams ahead of the April 17 tax-filing deadline.<\/p>\n<p>In March, the Ohio Attorney General\u2019s Help Center logged more than 340 reports of tax scams, compared to about 160 in January and 280 in February.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cScam artists cast a wide net. They know not everyone will fall for it, but some will,\u201d Attorney General DeWine said. \u201cWe encourage people to be very careful, especially this time of year.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cScam artists will try to scare you to death, saying they\u2019re the IRS and they\u2019re coming to throw you in jail if you don\u2019t pay them immediately,\u201d DeWine added. \u201cThe real IRS doesn\u2019t operate like that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Among the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/links.govdelivery.com\/track?type=click&amp;enid=ZWFzPTEmbXNpZD0mYXVpZD0mbWFpbGluZ2lkPTIwMTgwNDAzLjg3ODUyNTgxJm1lc3NhZ2VpZD1NREItUFJELUJVTC0yMDE4MDQwMy44Nzg1MjU4MSZkYXRhYmFzZWlkPTEwMDEmc2VyaWFsPTE3MjM2MDEzJmVtYWlsaWQ9ZWRpdG9yQHRoZXZ3aW5kZXBlbmRlbnQuY29tJnVzZXJpZD1lZGl0b3JAdGhldndpbmRlcGVuZGVudC5jb20mdGFyZ2V0aWQ9JmZsPSZtdmlkPSZleHRyYT0mJiY=&amp;&amp;&amp;100&amp;&amp;&amp;http:\/\/www.ohioattorneygeneral.gov\/Media\/News-Releases\/February-2018\/Attorney-General-DeWine-Warns-of-Tax-Scams\">tax scams reported<\/a>\u00a0to the Ohio Attorney General\u2019s Office, the IRS impostor phone scam is the most common. In this scam, people generally get a call saying the federal government is taking action against them for tax problems and they must call back immediately (and eventually pay) to resolve the problem.<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->Tips to avoid the scams include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Don\u2019t trust threatening callers.<\/strong>\u00a0Those who receive an unexpected phone call from someone who threatens to arrest them for not paying taxes should be very skeptical, especially if they never received any written notice.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Avoid making payments over the phone.<\/strong>\u00a0People shouldn\u2019t trust someone who demands that they pay immediately over the phone using a gift card or by sending a wire transfer. These are preferred payment methods for scam artists, because once sent, it\u2019s very difficult to trace or recover the money. The real IRS won\u2019t demand that people pay over the phone using one of these specific methods.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Don\u2019t respond to illegal robocalls in any way.<\/strong>\u00a0Don\u2019t interact with the caller, and don\u2019t call a number left on a phone or in a message. Responding to a scam call can result in even more calls because it lets con artists know that a phone number belongs to a real person.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Don\u2019t always trust caller ID.<\/strong>\u00a0Scammers may \u201cspoof\u201d a phone number, making the number on someone\u2019s caller ID appear to be from the IRS, even when it\u2019s not. For example, a call may appear to be coming from a 202 (Washington, D.C.) area code, when it\u2019s actually coming from another country.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Check into call-blocking options.\u00a0<\/strong>Find out if services are available through a phone carrier, one\u2019s phone itself, or third-party apps to help stop unwanted calls.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>IRS or U.S. Treasury impersonation scams can be reported to the U.S. Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration at\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/links.govdelivery.com\/track?type=click&amp;enid=ZWFzPTEmbXNpZD0mYXVpZD0mbWFpbGluZ2lkPTIwMTgwNDAzLjg3ODUyNTgxJm1lc3NhZ2VpZD1NREItUFJELUJVTC0yMDE4MDQwMy44Nzg1MjU4MSZkYXRhYmFzZWlkPTEwMDEmc2VyaWFsPTE3MjM2MDEzJmVtYWlsaWQ9ZWRpdG9yQHRoZXZ3aW5kZXBlbmRlbnQuY29tJnVzZXJpZD1lZGl0b3JAdGhldndpbmRlcGVuZGVudC5jb20mdGFyZ2V0aWQ9JmZsPSZtdmlkPSZleHRyYT0mJiY=&amp;&amp;&amp;101&amp;&amp;&amp;http:\/\/www.treasury.gov\/tigta\">www.treasury.gov\/tigta<\/a>\u00a0or 800.366.4484. Consumers also can contact the Ohio Attorney General\u2019s Office at\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/links.govdelivery.com\/track?type=click&amp;enid=ZWFzPTEmbXNpZD0mYXVpZD0mbWFpbGluZ2lkPTIwMTgwNDAzLjg3ODUyNTgxJm1lc3NhZ2VpZD1NREItUFJELUJVTC0yMDE4MDQwMy44Nzg1MjU4MSZkYXRhYmFzZWlkPTEwMDEmc2VyaWFsPTE3MjM2MDEzJmVtYWlsaWQ9ZWRpdG9yQHRoZXZ3aW5kZXBlbmRlbnQuY29tJnVzZXJpZD1lZGl0b3JAdGhldndpbmRlcGVuZGVudC5jb20mdGFyZ2V0aWQ9JmZsPSZtdmlkPSZleHRyYT0mJiY=&amp;&amp;&amp;102&amp;&amp;&amp;http:\/\/www.ohioprotects.org\/\">www.OhioProtects.org<\/a>\u00a0or 800.282.0515 for help detecting a scam.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Submitted information COLUMBUS &#8212; Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine warns that more consumers are reporting tax scams ahead of the April 17 tax-filing deadline. In March, the Ohio Attorney General\u2019s Help Center logged more than 340 reports of tax scams, compared to about 160 in January and 280 in February. \u201cScam artists cast a wide [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-100556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-04 01:28:20","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100556"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100556\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}