<\/p>\n
The Internal Revenue Service communicates almost exclusively through written, mailed correspondence, according to\u00a0fraud experts. They urge heightened caution this tax filing season as scammers employ artificial intelligence to craft more authentic-seeming messages.<\/p>\n
LPETTET\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
Every tax season, scammers try to part you from your money. And AI is making their job easier than ever.<\/p>\n
It used to be a staple of \u201chow to spot scams\u201d advice: Typos, poor grammar and bad graphics were clear giveaways that a menacing message from the IRS was fake. But large language models like ChatGPT, Perplexity and Claude allow nefarious actors to clean up their language and generate near-perfect logos, letterhead and text. And spoofing technology makes it so phone calls look like they\u2019re coming from the IRS. (Hearst, which owns the San Francisco Chronicle, has a partnership with OpenAI, which developed ChatGPT. AI was not used to create this story except for the named example at the end.)<\/p>\n
Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n
In addition to crafting more authentic-seeming messages, artificial intelligence is helping scammers synthesize information and identify targets, said Jonathan Polk, Visa\u2019s regional risk officer for North America. So-called \u201cspear phishing\u201d attacks, where criminals target potential victims who have recently made a major financial change like buying a new home, are more sophisticated than ever.<\/p>\n
It all makes the days of the crudely obvious foreign-prince scammer seem \u201cquaint to remember,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Visa monitors activity on the dark web \u2014 hard-to-access corners of the internet where cybercriminals gather to plot, access marketplaces of illegal goods, and swap tips and tactics \u2014 and Polk said there is \u201ccause for concern\u201d about the volume of information there related to tax scams and AI. Dark web chatter about tax scams rose 62% in February from January of this year, according to Visa\u2019s monitoring.<\/p>\n
San Francisco Chronicle Logo<\/p>\n
Make us a Preferred Source to get more of our news when you search.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n Add Preferred Source<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n \u201cFraudsters are organized, they\u2019re well-financed and they\u2019re well-equipped,\u201d Polk said. \u201cIt\u2019s not a secret that they are leveraging the technology that we\u2019re leveraging. That includes AI.\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Criminals look to commit a few types of financial crimes around tax filing season. Some want to get hold of your personal identifying information, like what\u2019s on your W2 and driver\u2019s license, to steal your identity. Others want to impersonate the government to intercept your tax payment or claim your refund for themselves. Some might just want to take a fee for filing your taxes, or for giving you an advance on your refund, and run off with it, without delivering on their end.\u00a0<\/p>\n Many are attempting some combination of these, if not all of them.<\/p>\n AI makes all of these types of scams more convincing: \u201cIt\u2019s very easy to create an email, create a text, even voice cloning,\u201d said Alma Galvan, the regional director of marketing and comms for the Better Business Bureau of the San Francisco Bay Area. And it can be done in any language the victim speaks.<\/p>\n So what can consumers do? At the end of the day, scammers still use the same tactics as they did before, said Larry Zelvin, the head of the financial crimes unit at BMO Financial Group. Typos aren\u2019t the obvious tell they once were, but there are still signs you can look out for.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Here are the red flags to watch out for this tax filing season.\u00a0<\/p>\n Texts, emails, phone calls and social media<\/p>\n The Internal Revenue Service almost exclusively contacts people via snail mail, Zelvin said \u2014 unless they\u2019ve sent many letters that have gone unanswered, at which point they might escalate to a phone call. The IRS will not text you. The IRS will not reach out over social media or third-party messaging apps.\u00a0<\/p>\n The government also will not send you QR codes to scan or electronic links or attachments to open. And a government agent \u2014 or any legitimate actor on behalf of a government or financial institution \u2014 won\u2019t ask you to read back the multi-factor authentication code you just received so that they can \u201cverify\u201d your identity.<\/p>\n When it comes to communicating with the IRS, \u201cgenerally speaking, people should be downright suspicious any time they get a communication through anything other than a letter that looks like one you would normally get from the IRS,\u201d Polk said.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n And if the IRS does contact you, you\u2019ll get a reference number for your case. You can go to IRS.gov<\/a>, create an account if you don\u2019t already have one, and enter that case number to verify what\u2019s going on.<\/p>\n False urgency<\/p>\n Scammers create a sense of urgency to make potential victims anxious, which makes them more likely to act quickly without thinking through what they\u2019re doing. The IRS doesn\u2019t work that way, Zelvin said.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s the government. It\u2019s going to be slow,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Any message indicating a tight timeline to pay or respond is not coming from a legitimate government source. Phrases like \u201cact now or\u2026\u201d \u201cyour refund is in jeopardy,\u201d \u201cfinal notice\u201d when you\u2019ve received no other notices, and any threats that indicate the police are about to show up at your home are signs of a fake message.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cWhen they say you have a very limited time to act, it\u2019s almost certainly some kind of a scheme,\u201d Polk said. \u201cThe government just doesn\u2019t move that fast. \u2026 They don\u2019t participate in pressure campaigns.\u201d<\/p>\n Cryptocurrency, wire transfers and other alternative payments<\/p>\n As of 2026, the U.S. government will not ever ask for your tax payment via Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, or any other 21st-century cryptocurrency. The same goes for wire transfers, gift cards and payment apps like Venmo or Zelle, Galvan said.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u2018Guaranteed refunds\u2019<\/p>\n No tax preparer who hasn’t seen your records can guarantee in advance that you’ll receive a government refund. Decline to do business with anyone who promises you one.<\/p>\n Galvan recommended that before using any tax preparer in California, verify that they\u2019re licensed in the state and do a quick check of their Google results and online reviews.<\/p>\n Other fraud-fighting measures<\/p>\n There are also things you can do proactively to protect yourself and your finances, as well as recourse if you think you\u2019ve already been a victim of a tax scam.<\/p>\n Set up alerts on your credit card and bank accounts. You can make it so that you get a text every time a transaction occurs, Polk said. That will allow you to catch fraudulent ones right away, which means you\u2019ll have a better chance of getting your financial institution to reverse the charge.<\/p>\n Freeze your accounts with all three credit bureaus. I\u2019m the victim of (pre-AI) identity theft. Freezing my credit would have prevented just about all of it, which is why I tell everyone to do it<\/a>.<\/p>\n File an identity theft complaint at FTC.gov<\/a>. Galvan said you can also report it to your local police station and to the Better Business Bureau\u2019s scam tracker<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n You can even use AI to fight back, Polk said. If you get a suspicious-sounding message, throw it in the AI of your choice and ask if it sounds like a scam or a legitimate IRS communication. Running Visa\u2019s dark web example through ChatGPT prompted it to generate a lengthy rundown of the many warning signs on display \u2014 though a check-in with a trusted friend, financial professional or tax attorney would be best.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Internal Revenue Service communicates almost exclusively through written, mailed correspondence, according to\u00a0fraud experts. They urge heightened caution…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2324,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[24,25,2545,781,2544],"class_list":{"0":"post-2323","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ai","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-personal-finance","11":"tag-tech","12":"tag-us-and-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2323\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}