Got a scary phone call saying you owe a lot of money to the Internal Revenue Service?
It is a scam.
Tax experts can say that with confidence, without knowing any of the details, because the IRS does not solicit payments by phone. It will not send emails. If the agency needs information from you, they write a letter first.
The fact that this is easy to find out does not stop scammers from telephoning millions of Americans to get personal information. And it does not stop people from falling for it.
In one scam still operating, 896,000 people have been called by would-be swindlers, and more than 5,000 victims have handed over $26.5 million, the IRS says.
Even tax accountants must work hard to avoid fraudsters in the run-up to the annual filing deadline, which is April 18 this year. In Maine and Massachusetts, the tax deadline is April 19.
Jeffrey Schneider, an enrolled agent for SFS Tax & Accounting Services in Port St. Lucie, Florida, gets called regularly by con artists saying they are IRS agents.
"I ask for their ID numbers, and they give me four numbers. Then I say, 'That's not the right kind of ID,'" Schneider says.
Here are four ways to avoid tax scams:
1. Shred, shred, shred