It is the time of year that people are getting tax documents in the mail and the various scam artists are trying to get people to give them information over the phone or via email. StaffScapes would like to take a moment to remind you of a few things that will help you protect yourself from these scams.

As the IRS states for their consumer alerts, “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is!”

• The IRS doesn’t initiate contact with taxpayers by email, text messages or social media channels to request personal or financial information. 
• IRS does not threaten taxpayers with lawsuits, imprisonment or other enforcement action.

Some additional best practices that can help protect you are:

• Never confirm information via email from the unknown source.
• Verify the source that is requesting the information—always use the phone number you have on file and not one provided in any request
• Watch for slight changes in email addresses—some will swap letters or make similar substitutions so at first glance, it may be overlooked

For more information, please visit https://www.irs.gov/uac/tax-scams-consumer-alerts