IRS Announces Annual Tax Scams
March 2nd, 2017 by admin
Each year the IRS announces a list of the “Dirty Dozen Tax Scams” its agents encounter most frequently. Highlighted here are seven of the most common.
| Creating fake income. It has come to the attention of the IRS that some taxpayers are creating false income for the sole purpose of obtaining tax credits like the Earned Income Tax Credit. This false income can be in the form of a fake 1099-MISC or fictitious self-employment income. The penalties for this type of fraud can be severe. | | Falsely padding deductions. Creating deductions and inflating dollar amounts of legitimate deductions is now on the IRS Dirty Dozen list. While it may seem a little thing to stretch the amounts, the increased reporting received by the IRS makes it easier for them to see these inflated deductions. | | Excessive business credits. This scam focuses on two commonly misused business credits: the fuel credit and the research credit. The fuel credit is usually only available for off-street vehicle use (typically for farming). While the research credit may seem straightforward, there are stringent qualifications and reporting requirements. Prior to using either of these credits, you should ask for a review of your situation. | | Fake charities. After major disasters, many charitable givers are scammed into making donations to fake charities. This makes donations to them nondeductible. To protect against this, prior to donating funds make sure the charity is both legitimate and deemed a qualified charity by the IRS. Here is a link to the IRS tool to confirm charitable organizations. IRS Exempt Organizations List Check | | Identity Theft. Identity theft tops the Dirty Dozen list every year. Thankfully, the IRS takes precautionary measures to curtail this out-of-control problem. In addition to limiting the number of direct deposits it will make to any single account, the IRS is working with states and tax preparation software vendors to put more controls in place. This includes some states requiring drivers license numbers on their tax forms, delays in early processing of tax refunds, internal tracking within software programs, and continual checking for heavy filing activity. | Page 1 of 2 | Next page
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