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Tips To Avoid Fake IRS Scams This Tax Season

DETROIT (WWJ) -- With the tax season in full swing, many scam artists come out of the woodwork.

The most popular form of tax season fraud involves fake emails and phone calls from people claiming to be from the IRS and threatening jail time if you don't pay up.

Luis Garcia, spokesperson for the IRS spoke with WWJ Newsradio 950 about some of the earmarks of these scammers.

"In the rare event that you do get a call from the IRS, we're not going to be threatening, we're not going to be asking you for immediate payment and we're certainly not going to be asking you to put it on a Green Dot credit card or some other specific sort of payment method," Garcia said. "If you get these calls, the best thing you can do is hang up."

Garcia said that it is important to never give out your personal information when you receive these types of calls or emails.

"We're never going to call you in a threatening manner, we're never going to use foul language, we're never going to threaten you with arrest and we're never going to request immediate payment," Garcia said. "That's part of the leverage that the scam artist uses -- really rushing you to pay this off as quickly as possible before, supposedly, you're going to be arrested."

To report the various types of tax-related illegal activities, refer to this IRS chart explaining the types of activity and the appropriate forms or other methods to use.

You can read more about how to protect yourself from tax season scams at the IRS Tax Scams/Consumer Alerts page.

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