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IRS or Impostor?
You never thought it'd happen to you, but here you are: you're alone in your office, with no one to talk to except the angry man on the other end of the phone, threatening to bring law enforcement to your door unless you "pay the IRS the $10,000 you owe".
Or maybe your situation isn't quite so in-your-face. You get an email informing you that you only have 20 days left to redeem your Child Tax Credit. A text message claiming to be from your local IRS agent pings on your phone. How do you know what to trust?
Good news: none of the examples above are from the IRS.
As a general rule, the IRS communicates through paper mail, not phone, text, or email. Only rarely will they contact you through other means, and that only happens after several letters have been ignored.
If you're still not sure, NPR has some helpful advice: "If you think a caller claiming to be from the IRS might be real, the IRS says you should ask them for their name, badge number and callback number, which you can verify with the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration by calling 1-800-366-4484. Then, you can either call the IRS back or report the scammer here."
If you get a fraudulent email, DON'T reply or open any attachments. Instead, forward the entire email to phishing@irs.gov.
Proactive steps
To proactively prevent identity theft, consider getting an IP PIN. Nobody can file your tax return without it, and you'll get a new one each year. Just make sure you notify your tax preparer.