Calhoun Police warn public of fake IRS calls

From Calhoun Police: Chief Garry Moss states Calhoun Police have received several complainants over the past week pertaining to fraudulent calls from individuals claiming to be Internal Revenue agents.

The caller states, they are calling in reference to taxes being owed to the IRS by the call recipient. In some cases, they (caller) are asking for personal and or financial information to verify they (caller) are speaking with the correct person. Another variation of the call is to inform the call recipient they in-fact do owe back taxes to the IRS and offer several alternatives to rectify the delinquent account. In some cases, the caller threatens legal action to include arrest, license suspension and bank account seizures.

“After conferring with representatives of the Internal Revenue Service, it was confirmed by our office that initial contact from IRS agents with taxpayers would come via mail,” says Lt. Tony Pyle.

Tips for dealing with these calls:

• If you know you owe taxes or think you might owe taxes, call the IRS at 1-800-829-1040. The IRS employees at that line can help you with a payment issue- if there really is such an issue.
• If you know you don’t owe taxes or have no reason to think that you owe any taxes (for example, you’ve never received a bille or the caller made some bogus threats as described above), then call and report the incident to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration at 1-800-366-4484.
• You can file a complaint using the FTC Complaint Assistant; or choose “other” and then “Imposter scams”. If the complaint involves someone impersonating the IRS, include the words “IRS Telephone Scam” in the notes.