We’re less than 2 weeks away from Tax Day. Normally, your taxes need to be filed by April 15, but due to a couple of date conflicts, this year we have until April 18.
To stay ahead of cybercriminals, who are always out in full force during tax season, we try to keep you informed of the latest scams. Unfortunately, a new rule with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is going to muddy the waters when trying to spot a scammer.
What IRS change could cause confusion with taxpayers?
What we’re talking about is the way the IRS collects a tax debt. Time and time again we’ve told you that if anyone calls you claiming to be collecting a tax debt, hang up. That’s because the IRS had a rule that they would never ask for payment information over the phone.
That’s about to change.
The IRS is going to start using third-party debt collectors. It plans to begin private collection of certain overdue federal tax debts in April 2017 and has selected four contractors to implement the new program. The IRS posted this explanation on its site:
“The new program, authorized under a federal law enacted by Congress last December, enables these designated contractors to collect, on the government’s behalf, outstanding inactive tax receivables. Authorized under a federal law enacted by Congress in December 2015, Section 32102 of the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act (FAST Act) requires the IRS to use private collection agencies for the collection of outstanding inactive tax receivables.”
These private collection agencies will be working on older accounts where the taxpayer owes money but the IRS has stopped working on the account.
