I have been warning you for years about scammers posing as IRS agents demanding immediate payment of overdue taxes by credit card,  prepaid debit card or wired funds.    Often the scammers threaten their victims with criminal charges, deportation or loss of a driver’s license if a payment is not immediately made. However, in a new twist, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration has recently issued a warning that the scammers are now demanding payment for these phony overdue taxes by way of iTunes gift cards.

TIPS

This scam is easy to spot.   The IRS will never initiate communications with a taxpayer by phone so if someone calls you purporting to be from the IRS in an initial effort to collect overdue taxes, you should hang up because it is a scam.   Even if your Caller ID appears to show that the call is from the IRS, this does not mean that the call actually is from the IRS.  Through a technique called “spoofing” a scammer can make the call appear to be legitimate, but it is not.  The IRS will never demand payment by credit card, debit card, cash card or wired funds through an initial telephone call.   Nor will the IRS EVER demand that payment be made by way of iTunes gift card or any other gift card. If you think that you really may owe taxes, call the IRS at 800-829-1040 to speak to a real IRS employee.  If you receive a scam call, you may wish to report the call to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration at 800-366-4484.