William Vaughan Company CPAs, reports one of their clients got a fax that seemed to be from the IRS asking for bank account information. See their post and a copy of the fax at: Recent IRS Scam Requests Bank Account Information.
How can you tell this is a scam? That is not how the IRS does things. Very simply, it fails the smell test.
- First, the IRS would send a first class letter.
- Second, your reply would be by first class mail.
- Third, they have no interest in your bank accounts except to cash your check (in which case they don’t need anything other than the check), or to send a refund (in which case they don’t need your bank account info and will get your address off your tax return), or to garnish your accounts for back taxes (in which case you shouldn’t give them account information but it doesn’t matter because they will find your accounts without any help from you and anyway you should be talking to the IRS through your attorney or tax accountant!).
- Fourth, that page doesn’t even look like anything I’ve ever seen from the IRS. Does it to you?
Be careful! There are lots of people who want to take your money.
The secret of such scams is that they either appeal to our greed (untold wealth from a dormant Nigerian account), or to a threat of punishment (although not explicitly stated here, one could infer that the IRS could penalize you if you don’t comply with the request).