Five Easy Ways to Spot IRS Scam Calls

By Bill

IRS Identifies Five Easy Ways to Spot   Suspicious Calls

WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service issued a consumer alert today providing taxpayers with additional tips to protect themselves from telephone scam artists calling and pretending to be with the IRS.

These callers may demand money or may say you have a refund due and try to trick you into sharing private information. These con artists can sound convincing when they call. They may know a lot about you, and they usually alter the caller ID to make it look like the IRS is calling. They use fake names and bogus IRS identification badge numbers. If you don’t answer, they often leave an “urgent” callback request.

“These telephone scams are being seen in every part of the country, and we urge people not to be deceived by these threatening phone calls,” IRS Commissioner John Koskinen said. “We have formal processes in place for people with tax issues. The IRS respects taxpayer rights, and these angry, shake-down calls are not how we do business.”

The IRS reminds people that they can know pretty easily when a supposed IRS caller is a fake. Here are five things the scammers often do but the IRS will not do. Any one of these five things is a tell-tale sign of a scam. The IRS will never:

1. Call you about taxes you owe without first mailing you an official notice.
2. Demand that you pay taxes without giving you the opportunity to question or appeal the amount they say you owe.
3. Require you to use a specific payment method for your taxes, such as a prepaid debit card.
4. Ask for credit or debit card numbers over the phone.
5. Threaten to bring in local police or other law-enforcement groups to have you arrested for not paying.

If you get a phone call from someone claiming to be from the IRS and asking for money, here’s what you should do:

• If you know you owe taxes or think you might owe, call the IRS at 1.800.829.1040. The IRS workers can help you with a payment issue.
• If you know you don’t owe taxes or have no reason to believe that you do, report the incident to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) at 1.800.366.4484 or at www.tigta.gov.
• If you’ve been targeted by this scam, also contact the Federal Trade Commission and use their “FTC Complaint Assistant” at FTC.gov. Please add “IRS Telephone Scam” to the comments of your complaint.

Remember, too, the IRS does not use email, text messages or any social media to discuss your personal tax issue. For more information on reporting tax scams, go to www.irs.gov and type “scam” in the search box.

Additional information about tax scams are available on IRS social media sites, including YouTube http://youtu.be/UHlxTX4rTRU?list=PL2A3E7A9BD8A8D41D. and Tumblr http://internalrevenueservice.tumblr.com where people can search “scam” to find all the scam-related posts.

Atlas Shrugged III, The Movie

By Bill

Atlas Shrugged III, the movie is slated for release on Sept 12, 2014.

If you want to see it at your local theatre you need to get involved…

Click on the link to the official movie web site, www.atlasshruggedmovie.com and click the link to ‘Get Involved.’

Taxpayer Advocate Service

By Bill

Ten Things to Know About the Taxpayer Advocate Service

1. The Taxpayer Advocate Service (TAS) is an independent organization within the IRS and is your voice at the IRS.

2. We help taxpayers whose problems are causing financial difficulty. This includes businesses as well as individuals.

3. You may be eligible for our help if you’ve tried to resolve your tax problem through normal IRS channels and have gotten nowhere, or you believe an IRS procedure just isn’t working as it should.

4. The IRS has adopted a Taxpayer Bill of Rights that includes 10 fundamental rights that every taxpayer has when interacting with the IRS:

Taxpayer Bill of Rights

• The Right to Be Informed.
• The Right to Quality Service.
• The Right to Pay No More than the Correct Amount of Tax.
• The Right to Challenge the IRS’s Position and Be Heard.
• The Right to Appeal an IRS Decision in an Independent Forum.
• The Right to Finality.
• The Right to Privacy.
• The Right to Confidentiality.
• The Right to Retain Representation.
• The Right to a Fair and Just Tax System.

Our TAS Tax Toolkit at TaxpayerAdvocate.irs.gov can help you understand these rights and what they mean for you. The toolkit also has examples that show how the Taxpayer Bill of Rights can apply in specific situations.

5. If you qualify for our help, you’ll be assigned to one advocate who will be with you at every turn. And our service is always free.

6. We have at least one local taxpayer advocate office in every state, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico.  You can call your advocate, whose number is in your local directory, in Pub. 1546, Taxpayer Advocate Service — Your Voice at the IRS, and on our website at irs.gov/advocate. You can also call us toll-free at
877-777-4778.

7. The TAS Tax Toolkit at TaxpayerAdvocate.irs.gov has basic tax information, details about tax credits (for individuals and businesses), and much more.

8. TAS also handles large-scale or systemic problems that affect many taxpayers. If you know of one of these broad issues, please report it to us at www.irs.gov/sams.

9. You can get updates at

• facebook.com/YourVoiceAtIRS
• Twitter.com/YourVoiceatIRS
• youtube.com/TASNTA

10. TAS is here to help you, because when you’re dealing with a tax problem, the worst thing you can do is to do nothing at all.