Fraudulent CP2000 Notices

[S T]

Just received this from Spidell (Calif) not posted yet on irs.gov

The IRS is warning taxpayers and practitioners that a new scam uses fraudulent CP2000s to solicit money from taxpayers. The fraudulent forms look convincing, and show balances due that are small enough that taxpayers just might pay rather than arguing the point.
However, upon closer inspection, these forms have telltale signs of fraud:
• The instructions direct the taxpayer to make out a check to "I.R.S." rather than to "United States Treasury;" and
• The return address is "Austin Processing Center, P.O. Box 15264, Austin, TX 78761-5264," which does not match the address listed on the IRS website for the Austin Processing Center.
Tax practitioners should advise clients to contact them if any unexpected balance due arrives from the IRS, so that the correspondence can be verified.
The IRS has not yet posted an alert about this phishing scam variation, but information is forthcoming and it will be available at the following page:

https://www.irs.gov/uac/latest-news

Sandy

[FEDUKE404]

IRS info re CP2000 notices scam

The official IRS verbiage related to this specific scam is now available:

https://www.irs.gov/uac/irs-and-security-summit-partners-warn-of-fake-tax-bill-emails

Not mentioned previously: ". . .to be on guard against fake emails purporting to contain an IRS tax bill related to the Affordable Care Act."

FE

[Roland Slugg]

Just received this from Spidell (Calif) not posted yet on irs.gov

The IRS posted it on their web site on September 22nd.

It should be easy to catch the crooks behind this one. Just park an IRS or FBI surveillance van outside the post office or private mailbox store housing the POB and arrest whoever collects the mail.

I wonder if the IRS will think of that?

[David1980]

I wonder if the IRS will think of that?

Given that they've sent thousands of refund checks to the same address in the past I don't expect much from them in terms of common sense.

[Burke]

And what bank in their right mind would cash a check made out to I.R.S? How would the perps get the money? This makes the Stupid Criminal list in my book. PS: I have plenty of clients who still make out their checks to IRS or Internal Revenue Service.

[Maude Lebowski]

And what bank in their right mind would cash a check made out to I.R.S? How would the perps get the money? This makes the Stupid Criminal list in my book. PS: I have plenty of clients who still make out their checks to IRS or Internal Revenue Service.

I bet the bank is not cashing a check payable to the IRS. There was a scam many years ago, in which postal employees would steal checks made out to the IRS. They would change IRS to MRS and add a name after it. These scammers might be doing the same thing.

[FEDUKE404]

Update on form of notification

The IRS weekly newsletter of today lead with the following item:

"The Internal Revenue Service and its Security Summit partners this week issued an alert to taxpayers and tax professionals to be on the lookout for fake IRS tax bills that may arrive by email, as an attachment, or by mail purportedly related to the Affordable Care Act."

I thought (originally) we were talking about only phishing emails, but perhaps not.

Question: I assume there has to be some sort of personal information shown on the "IRS notice" such as name, address, piece of SSN, etc. That would require a bit of sophistication somewhat higher than the inheritance letters from Nigeria. How do they pull off that trick??

FE

[David1980]

And what bank in their right mind would cash a check made out to I.R.S? How would the perps get the money? This makes the Stupid Criminal list in my book. PS: I have plenty of clients who still make out their checks to IRS or Internal Revenue Service.

That part is simpler, you just change IRS to IR Smith. (http://articles.latimes.com/1998/nov/16/news/mn-43432).

[Burke]

Resourceful, but still stupid. Did they really think they would not get caught depositing it into a personal checking account? Apparently, it must have worked for a while..... That's what's scary.