Stacie's Tax Stuff

WASHINGTON — As the 2014 filing season nears an end, the Internal Revenue Service today issued another strong warning for consumers to guard against sophisticated and aggressive phone scams targeting taxpayers, including recent immigrants, as reported incidents of this crime continue to rise nationwide. These scams won’t likely end with the filing season so the IRS urges everyone to remain on guard.

The IRS will always send taxpayers a written notification of any tax due via the U.S. mail. The IRS never asks for credit card, debit card or prepaid card information over the telephone. For more information or to report a scam, go to http://www.irs.gov and type “scam” in the search box.

People have reported a particularly aggressive phone scam in the last several months. Immigrants are frequently targeted. Potential victims are threatened with deportation, arrest, having their utilities shut off, or having their driver’s licenses revoked. Callers are frequently insulting or hostile – apparently to scare their potential victims.

Potential victims may be told they are entitled to big refunds, or that they owe money that must be paid immediately to the IRS. When unsuccessful the first time, sometimes phone scammers call back trying a new strategy.

Other characteristics of this scam include:

• Scammers use fake names and IRS badge numbers. They generally use common names and surnames to identify themselves.
• Scammers may be able to recite the last four digits of a victim’s Social Security number.
• Scammers spoof the IRS toll-free number on caller ID to make it appear that it’s the IRS calling.
• Scammers sometimes send bogus IRS emails to some victims to support their bogus calls.
• Victims hear background noise of other calls being conducted to mimic a call site.
• After threatening victims with jail time or driver’s license revocation, scammers hang up and others soon call back pretending to be from the local police or DMV, and the caller ID supports their claim.

If you get a phone call from someone claiming to be from the IRS, here’s what you should do:

• If you know you owe taxes or you think you might owe taxes, call the IRS at 1.800.829.1040. The IRS employees at that line can help you with a payment issue, if there really is such an issue.
• If you know you don’t owe taxes or have no reason to think that you owe any taxes (for example, you’ve never received a bill or the caller made some bogus threats as described above), then call and report the incident to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration at 1.800.366.4484.
• If you’ve been targeted by this scam, you should also contact the Federal Trade Commission and use their “FTC Complaint Assistant” at FTC.gov. Please add “IRS Telephone Scam” to the comments of your complaint.

Taxpayers should be aware that there are other unrelated scams (such as a lottery sweepstakes) and solicitations (such as debt relief) that fraudulently claim to be from the IRS.

The IRS encourages taxpayers to be vigilant against phone and email scams that use the IRS as a lure. The IRS does not initiate contact with taxpayers by email to request personal or financial information. This includes any type of electronic communication, such as text messages and social media channels. The IRS also does not ask for PINs, passwords or similar confidential access information for credit card, bank or other financial accounts. Recipients should not open any attachments or click on any links contained in the message. Instead, forward the e-mail to phishing@irs.gov.

More information on how to report phishing scams involving the IRS is available on the genuine IRS website, IRS.gov.

You can reblog the IRS tax scam alert via Tumblr.

Starting in 2013, you may be liable for an Additional Medicare Tax if your income exceeds certain limits. Here are six things that you should know about this tax:

1. The Additional Medicare Tax is 0.9 percent. It applies to the amount of your wages, self-employment income and railroad retirement (RRTA) compensation that is more than a threshold amount. The threshold amount that applies to you is based on your filing status. If you’re married and file a joint return, you must combine your spouse’s wages, compensation, or self-employment income with yours to determine if you exceed the “married filing jointly” threshold.
2. The threshold amounts are:
   

   Filing Status	Threshold Amount
   Married filing jointly	$250,000
   Married filing separately	$125,000
   Single	$200,000
   Head of household	$200,000
   Qualifying widow(er) with dependent child	$200,000

3. You must combine wages and self-employment income to determine if your income exceeds the threshold. You do not consider a loss from self-employment when you figure this tax. You must compare RRTA compensation separately to the threshold. See the instructions for Form 8959, Additional Medicare Tax, for examples.
4. Employers must withhold this tax from your wages or compensation when they pay you more than $200,000 in a calendar year, without regard to your filing status, wages paid to you by another employer, or income that you may have from other sources. Your employer does not combine the wages for married couples to determine whether to withhold Additional Medicare Tax.
5. You may owe more tax than the amount withheld, depending on your filing status and other income. In that case, you should make estimated tax payments or request additional income tax withholding using Form W-4, Employee’s Withholding Allowance Certificate. If you had too little tax withheld, or did not pay enough estimated tax, you may owe an estimated tax penalty. For more on this topic, see Publication 505, Tax Withholding and Estimated Tax.
6. If you owe this tax, file Form 8959, with your tax return. You also report any Additional Medicare Tax withheld by your employer on Form 8959.

Visit IRS.gov for more on this topic. Enter “Additional Medicare Tax” in the search box. You can also get forms and publications on IRS.gov or call 800-TAX-FORM (800-829-3676).

Additional IRS Resources:

• Find out if Additional Medicare Tax applies to you
• Questions and Answers for the Additional Medicare Tax
• Tax Topic 560 – Additional Medicare Tax