The tax season has already started for each and every citizen of the United States. This means that the IRS has been accepting tax returns at their offices for a month now. Therefore, it is time for us to start thinking about sending our tax return in case we have not done it yet.
In this sense, we may find that we have problems when filling out all the tax return documents to send it to the IRS. This has an easy solution for most taxpayers. There are free programs that help us to do the tax return and facilitate the process. However, not all citizens can access these free programs.
Therefore, many citizens need real help from a tax pro in order to send the necessary documents to the IRS. It is very common to hire the services of some of these tax professionals. But you have to watch out, not all professionals are what they say they are. We can find many scammers who want to get our tax refund.
Hire a legal IRS tax pro
The IRS has announced that there are many so-called tax pro’s who are only looking to steal our money. For that reason you have to watch out and avoid doing things wrong. In order to make sure that we are dealing with a legal tax pro, we have to take into account some aspects.
Choose your tax pro with care. Remember you’re ultimately responsible for all the information on your #IRS tax return, regardless of who prepares it. Learn more from this #IRSTaxTip: https://t.co/LWkQiFKVV3 pic.twitter.com/sUfOp66eIs
— IRSnews (@IRSnews) February 22, 2023
The IRS website states that “By law, anyone who is paid to prepare or assists in preparing federal tax returns must have a valid Preparer Tax Identification Number. Paid preparers must sign and include their PTIN on any tax return they prepare. Not signing a return is a red flag that the paid preparer may be looking to make a quick profit by promising a big refund or charging fees based on the size of the refund. Taxpayers should avoid these unethical “ghost” tax return preparers.”
So basically we should make sure that we are not being scammed and that the tax pro is totally legal. On the same IRS website they offer a series of tools to help us identify scammers.
How to avoid tax return scams?
The first thing we have to do is to be clear that the representative is legal, as we have already mentioned before. But if in doubt, pay attention to these tips:
- Do not sign a blank income tax return.
- Do not give out your Social Security number or say it out loud in public.
- Don’t authorize anyone who is not a professional in the industry to represent you.
In short, never trust anyone who is not associated with the IRS more than you should. This is important, as scammers are making increasingly elaborate schemes that are harder to detect. And when in doubt, report suspicious behavior.