Salt Lake City, Utah – About six years ago my oldest and youngest sons were home together when the telephone rang. This is when we still had a landline. Of course, neither of them picked up the phone, so the call went to voicemail. My landline phone voicemail system would allow anyone in the room to hear the message being left. The caller leaving the voicemail identified herself by giving her first name and an employee identification number. The caller then stated that I had a serious tax deficiency and that I owed the IRS money. The police were in the area and would be stopping by home to arrest me. Then the caller said, “if you don’t want to be arrested, you can handle this tax deficiency immediately over the phone by paying either by ACH or credit card the outstanding amount due and owing.”
My oldest son heard this message and immediately gave me a call at work. He asked me “Dad, is everything okay?” I told him, “It is a normal day at the office, what’s up?” He then informed me that I had received a voicemail message from the IRS and they have a warrant out for my arrest. I chuckled and told him not to worry, the IRS does not call and make these types of threats, if I were to be arrested the IRS would show up at my place of work and arrest me. In addition, I would have already been on high alert because the IRS would have inundated me with mail months or years ago that I had tax problems. The IRS always communicates by regular mail and the IRS would have given me fair warning of what was to come.
After I hung up and thought about my conversation with my son, I then got mad. My parents, my mother-in-law, my neighbors, and my friends have all received these telephone calls or voicemail messages. When these people close to me hear the word “IRS” they panic and so payments are made over the phone to these scam artists. Unlike me, I am a tax attorney, these neighbors and family members don’t know how the IRS operates and so they are afraid.
Most of my blogs are about the IRS and what I perceive to be injustices, but every once-in-a-while the IRS provides excellent information. Here is a link from the IRS warning taxpayers about possible scams – go to: https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/tax-scams-consumer-alerts
Tax problems are legal problems, and we solve both. If you or someone you know has an issue with paying their federal or state taxes and needs help to end their IRS nightmare, please contact Kent Brown at Strong & Hanni by either phone at (801) 532-7080 or email at: kbrown@strongandhanni.com or go to my personal Strong & Hanni webpage at: https://strongandhanni.com/attorneys/attorney-kent-brown/
