Identity Tax Scams in Florida

Florida is a pure heaven on Earth. Shining sun, ocean, palm trees, freedom and absolute joy. Most people come to Florida to rest. But there are some who come to this place to hunt. To hunt for money.

This year there appeared new generation of scammers who prey upon senior citizens. These criminal manage to steal federal tax refunds using identity theft. Unfortunately, it takes taxpayers several month to find out they were scammed. What also makes me sad, is that one can hardly see headlines about scammed taxpayers as this is very popular crime.

Since 2008 about 500,000 taxpayers have become victims if identity tax scams according to the Internal Revenue Service. Fraudsters invented new and more exquisite ways to steal SSN’s, drivers’ licenses and bank accounts.

Melanie Payne, The News-Press reporter said: “Most of those nearly half-million taxpayers found out they were victims when they tried to file their taxes and couldn’t do it electronically; or when weeks passed and they didn’t get their income tax refund; or when, in the summer, a letter came from the IRS telling them they had income they didn’t report on their tax return.”  

Everyone says tax identity theft is a new kind of scam that becomes more and more widespread. And fight against this kind of crime becomes as serious as fight against drug dealing.

According to the information provided by police and IRS, Florida takes the first place in a list of states with frequent identity thefts. The Sunshine State has a great concentration of older citizens who are an easy prey for fraudsters.

Certainly, the IRS can stop refund on fraudulent returns, but the thing is that the crime has to be reported at first. And how can that happen if victims find out that they have been scammed only after several months after the scam? 

Recently, there have appeared many complaints about IRS since the agency deals with identity thefts not as effectively as it should. Consumers think that solving issues takes too long as victims only have to fill out “identity theft form” and wait for response.

In order to avoid becoming a victim of identity tax scams, never give your Social Security number or baking information to anyone. Be extremely careful when making online purchases, and if you feel the store is fraudulent, you’d better avoid dealing with it.

As soon as you provide a thief with your personal information, you may forget about all your money. Having your Social Security Number frauds can easily steal assets from your banking account.

The most interesting thing that quite often identities can be stolen from credit card and medical records. Anyway, identity theft tax scams are very popular today, and you should be careful in order to becoming a victim of thieves.

This type of crime is growing, not decreasing, so you should follow all the precautions to keep your money and identity.