Skeptical of the IRS? How Max Benkel Can Help
Your phone rings. You pick it up and someone on the other end claims to be with the Internal Revenue Service. They claim you owe a great deal of money to the IRS, and they want payment stat.
You should not worry. That’s a scam that the IRS wants to stop.
Financial Scams Using the IRS Name
Many financial scams revolve around the claim that the scammer works for the IRS. The US Treasury and IRS created a website just to educate consumers about the variety of lies, scammers tell people to try to pry money out of them. The Tax Scams and Consumer Alerts web portal provides detailed information on the 12 scams most frequently tried on consumers. The thirteenth scam the IRS educates people about is one targeting tax preparers.
Some of these criminals use a rather savvy ruse, but they typically fail in one important area. Scammers call you on the phone.
The IRS doesn’t do this. It’s not that examiners – the term for their investigators – hate talking. The agency likes to put things into writing. When you genuinely owe the government money or face an audit, they send you a letter. It’s quite formal and detailed. You’ll rarely get offered a telephone call. The IRS will provide a postal address where you can mail payment and will offer you the option of paying your taxes online. The IRS provides its website URL. A genuine IRS URL always includes irs.gov.
Scams Target Minority Groups
Some of these ruses border on cruelty beyond crime. The criminals conduct a fair bit of research into their targets first, frequently targeting recent immigrants and the hearing-impaired community. The scammers play on the common fear of deportation with recent immigrants and the potential that they could misunderstand English slang or technical jargon. The scammer may use the individual’s native language to make sure their threat is completely understood. The scam of the hearing-impaired community goes through video relay services (VRS), since VRS doesn’t check the validity of a phone call first.
Offer to Phone the Caller Back
Rather than providing any information to a caller, ask for their name and badge number. Read this information back to them. Ask them for their extension number and explain that you will need to call them back at the 1-800 number the IRS provides. This lets you check the validity of their call, which is probably bogus. Whether they’re calling about tax liens in Georgia or an income tax return they say they never received, the examiner or agent should willingly provide you with their extension number, and the 1-800 number they provide you should match those provided below.
You can find all of the phone numbers for the agency on the IRS website. Some complex items like excise tax have a specialty desk assigned, but if you as an individual have questions about your taxes, you can phone 1-800-829-1040 from 7 am to 7 pm in your time zone. If you own a business and have business tax questions, you can phone 1-800-829-4933. Consumers who require a TTY/TDD can phone 1-800-829-4059. Also, don’t worry if you are an immigrant. Even if you have yet to learn to fluently speak and understand English, you can call and talk to an IRS representative. The IRS offers phone support in more than 350 languages. To talk to someone at the agency in English or Spanish, call 1-800-829-1040, but for all other languages, call 833-553-9895 to either speak with an agent via an interpreter or to set up an appointment locally to speak with someone in your native language.
If you receive a letter from the IRS that you don’t understand or you need help creating a payment plan for your tax bill, the Law Office of Max Benkel can help. Max Benkel provides the tax lawyer Georgia residents can trust. When you need a tax attorney Atlanta GA, pick up the phone and call the Law Office of Max Benkel. As an Atlanta tax attorney, Mr. Benkel can help you handle your audit or create a payment plan that lets you genuinely pay the IRS the money due. The tax attorney Georgia can trust can also help you report scammers who contacted you to the IRS and the police. If you did pay the scammers, let the tax attorney Atlanta residents rely on help you document it and pursue compensation.
