Cybercrime and Consumer Protection

The Federal Trade Commission is warning U.S. taxpayers to watch for a surge of phishing emails and 'smishing' texts this filing season that falsely claim a tax refund has been 'processed' or 'approved' and then demand personal data to 'verify' identity. The scams typically spoof the IRS or state tax agencies and try to harvest Social Security and bank-account numbers via malicious links, even though legitimate tax authorities do not text, email or DM people to request that information. The FTC is also flagging phone schemes in which callers pose as staff from a fake 'tax resolution' office and pressure people over supposed back taxes to steal their data. Officials urge people to ignore and report such contacts (including forwarding texts to 7726/"SPAM"), and note that suspected abusive tax schemes can be reported to the IRS using online Form 14242. Taxpayers who want to track a legitimate refund should instead use the IRS 'Where’s My Refund?' tool, which updates about 24 hours after an e-filed return and four weeks after a paper return is logged.