LAW409 Taxation

Topic: A New Tax Scam and tips How to deal with it

1.

The News article describes the new type of tax scam that involves tax time identity fraud. The article clearly explains modus operandi of the tax scammer. It states that if an individual is expecting a refund from the Internal Revenue service and finds out that the refund is more than the expected. In such a situation the individual should be more cautious as it indicates a fraud.  The tax scammers firstly steals the personal information from the tax preparers. Then they file bogus returns with authentic data. As soon IRS makes the refund and the money is deposited in the bank account the tax scammers makes the call as IRS collecting agent threatening to deposit the excess refund in a separate bank account. In this way the fraud is being committed against IRS using the individual tax payers.

2.

The topic discussed in the news article has a far reaching impact. It describes the new tax scam and how this can be avoided.  The article is important because it makes people more aware of the existing scams. The most important impact of the topic is that the awareness of the general public helps the authorities to take the corrective actions so that the fraud can be managed.

3.

The new tax scams discussed in the article mainly affects the Internal Revenue Service as they are making more refunds than the actual amount. This is a loss of the federal government thereby impacting all the citizens of the country. The scam also impacts the individual as the personal information of the taxpayer is used for committing fraud. This can lead to lead investigation against the person for committing fraud. The tax scams also impacts the tax preparer as the personal information’s are stolen from them. This could lead to lack of trust of the general public on tax return preparer eventually resulting in loss of business. Therefore the tax preparer should also be aware. 

4.

The article discusses the procedures in which the tax scam can be controlled. The potential future implications is that the steps that have been discussed in the article is followed so that the fraud can be stopped. In case corrective measures are not taken then it will lead to huge loss to the exchequer. The corrective actions that should be taken as discussed in the article is that if a large deposit is received from IRS then it should be informed to the authority and an official compliant should be filed. It is recommended that the tax preparer should not use general email for communication. They should only use encrypted email for sharing personal information.

Bibliography

Carrns, A. (2018). A New Tax Scam, and Tips on How to Deal With It. Nytimes.com. Retrieved 26 February 2018, from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/23/your-money/income-tax-scam-tips.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FIncome%20Tax

DeBacker, J., Heim, B. T., & Tran, A. (2015). Importing corruption culture from overseas: Evidence from corporate tax evasion in the United States. Journal of Financial Economics, 117(1), 122-138.