{"id":6733,"date":"2013-03-09T06:00:44","date_gmt":"2013-03-09T12:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.paristn.net\/articles\/?p=6733"},"modified":"2013-03-09T02:15:46","modified_gmt":"2013-03-09T08:15:46","slug":"irs-warns-of-tax-season-scams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.paristn.net\/articles\/2013\/03\/09\/irs-warns-of-tax-season-scams\/","title":{"rendered":"IRS Warns of Tax Season Scams"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-23472\" alt=\"Internal Revenue Service - IRS\" src=\"http:\/\/www.clarksvilleonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/08\/irs_logo-200x162.jpg\" width=\"200\" height=\"162\" \/><strong>Nashville, TN<\/strong> &#8211; As part of National Consumer Protection Week, the Internal Revenue Service today reminded Tennessee taxpayers to be on the lookout for scammers posing as the IRS and scammers posing as tax preparers with special knowledge about getting IRS tax benefits.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Tax scams come in many forms, but two of the most common involve fake IRS emails and dishonest people promising \u2018free\u2019 government money,&#8221; said IRS spokesman Dan Boone.<!--more-->Boone emphasized that the IRS does not initiate contact with taxpayers by email, text message or social media to request personal or financial information.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf the IRS needs to contact you,\u201d he said, \u201cwe will usually mail you an official notice.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Boone also warned of scammers that target low-income people, senior citizens, or even church congregations with promises of easy tax refunds or government stimulus money. They often target people who are not required to file a tax return.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPromoters claim they can get you a tax refund or stimulus payment,\u201d Boone said. &#8220;But they charge good money for bad advice.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Scammers recently have filed bogus claims for people to get the a higher education tax credit, the American Opportunity Tax Credit, even when the victim was not enrolled in or paying for college. They falsely claimed that refunds were available even for those who went to college decades ago.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe bottom line,\u201d Boone said, \u201cis that if there\u2019s any doubt about whether the IRS is really trying to contact you or whether you\u2019re eligible to file for an IRS refund, contact the IRS to find out.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Taxpayers can visit the IRS website, <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.irs.gov\" >www.irs.gov<\/a>, for information about avoiding tax scams and reporting them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nashville, TN &#8211; As part of National Consumer Protection Week, the Internal Revenue Service today reminded Tennessee taxpayers to be on the lookout for scammers posing as the IRS and scammers posing as tax preparers with special knowledge about getting IRS tax benefits. &#8220;Tax scams come in many forms, but two of the most common [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[181],"tags":[6169,1100,4627,107,641,642,284,7722,5131,5129,6014,2938,2165,7723],"class_list":["post-6733","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government","tag-american-opportunity-tax-credit","tag-dan-boone","tag-email","tag-featured","tag-internal-revenue-service","tag-irs","tag-nashville-tn","tag-national-consumer-protection-week","tag-scammers","tag-social-media","tag-tax-preparers","tag-tax-return","tag-taxpayers","tag-text-message"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.paristn.net\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.paristn.net\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.paristn.net\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.paristn.net\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.paristn.net\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6733"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.paristn.net\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6733\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6735,"href":"https:\/\/www.paristn.net\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6733\/revisions\/6735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.paristn.net\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.paristn.net\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.paristn.net\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}