The IRS has issued a consumer alert to warn taxpayers of new scams that urge people to use wage information on a tax return to claim false credits in hopes of getting a big refund.
One scheme, which is circulating on social media, encourages people to use tax software to manually fill out Form W-2 with false income information. Scammers suggest people make up large income and withholding figures as well as the employer it is coming from.
Scam artists then instruct people to file the bogus tax return electronically in hopes of getting a substantial refund — sometimes as much as five figures — due to a large amount of withholding.
The IRS is seeing more signs of this particular scam, “and we worry that innocent taxpayers could be at risk of being tempted into falling into a trap that puts them at risk of financial and criminal penalties,” said Acting IRS Commissioner Doug O'Donnell.