October 13, 2016 – The IRS is warning taxpayers that a new scam has come to their attention.  This scam involves a phony IRS CP 2000 notice and a claim that the income reported on your tax return does not match the income reported by your employer or some other third party payer. The fake notice requests taxpayers to make a payment to the “IRS Austin Processing Center”.

A legitimate notice would contain extensive information about what to do depending upon whether you agree or disagree with the notice.  Payments on legitimate notices are to be made to the “United States Treasury”.

To add confusion, the scam claims this has something to do with the Affordable Care Act.

The methods for delivering this scam are varied and include emails with phony forms attached, text messages, postal mail and even live phone calls.  The IRS will never initiate contact with you to collect overdue taxes by an email, text message or phone call.

What to Do

Make no mistake, these scammers are convincing.

• If you receive any emails or text messages that claim to be the IRS, do not respond.
• If you receive a phone call about this, simply hang up.
• If you receive a CP 2000 form in the mail and doubt its legitimacy, you can call the IRS at 1-800-366-4484 to confirm whether it is authentic.
• If you are a client of Dopkins & Company LLP please send any notices you receive to your Dopkins Tax Advisor before making any payment.

For more information, please contact Robert Pollock at rpollock@dopkins.com or your Dopkins Tax Advisor if you have questions or concerns.

About the Author

Robert Pollock CPA, CVA

Bob is Chair of Dopkins Tax Advisory Group. His practice has covered many industries, with a primary focus on tax and financial matters encountered by closely held business operations and their owners. He has significant experience dealing with federal corporate income, federal personal income, state and local income, estate and gift and sales tax matters. He has also prepared business valuations for estate, gift and income tax purposes and for clients who are actually engaged in buying or selling a business. He has worked extensively in the merger and acquisition arena with closely held entities.