Cherokee County Sheriff warns of tax scams

(From the Cherokee County Sheriff's Office)

Despite fewer than 1% of Americans who make less than $200,000.00 a year get audited by the IRS, roughly 25% of have a fear of being audited.

Thieves seize upon that fear - especially this time of year - to take advantage of others and steal their money.

With many of us having just filed or preparing to file our annual income taxes, this is a good time of year to be extra vigilant for calls from scammers, posing as agents with the Internal Revenue Service.

A common scam involves thieves sending out professional looking emails / texts / and making phone calls, claiming to be an IRS Agent.

They will ask the person answering the phone for personal information or tell them they owe taxes and there is a balance past due. Failure to immediately pay (with a credit card, bank card, or gift card) will result in the Sheriff coming to arrest them, so they say.

In reality, the Sheriff is not going to come arrest you for not having your income taxes paid.

Even if you do owe taxes, you'll receive a letter from the IRS through the United States Post Office and there will be an official process for payment long before any court proceedings begin.

And no legitimate agency or organization will ever ask to be paid with gift cards.

The increase in tax scams make this a great time of year to also get your credit report, which you can obtain for free once every twelve months. By visiting AnnualCreditReport.com or calling 1-877-
322-8228, you can receive (by email or standard mail) a credit report from Equifax, Experian and Transunion, the three nationwide credit bureaus. I encourage everyone to obtain this report to make sure there have been no unauthorized accounts or credit cards opened under their identity.

It's important to remember these thieves and scammers are good at what they do and can be convincing. They generally prey upon seniors so it's important to remind them to guard their personal information and assure them not to be embarrassed to tell you - or the authorities - if they believe they have been taken advantage of.