SALT LAKE CITY — With Tax Day 2017 just weeks away, the Internal Revenue Service is warning taxpayers about fraud scams.

This year, thousands of people in Utah are getting ready to file their tax returns, and many will pay someone else to prepare their returns for them. Officials with the IRS advise taxpayers to be wary of shady characters masquerading as professional preparers.

“Choose wisely,” said Mike Brock, assistant special agent in charge of the Las Vegas field office of the IRS Criminal Investigation Division. “You don’t want a preparer that is promising a large refund or basing their fee on a percentage (of the refund) because then they have an incentive to ‘create’ some deductions that might lower your tax bill.”

He noted that taxpayers should know that even if someone else prepares your return, the taxpayers are ultimately responsible for all the information on the return.

“So if you go to a tax preparer and that preparer signs that tax return, it doesn’t matter because you as the taxpayer are saying that under penalties of perjury that the information (in the return) is accurate,” he said. “Never forget that. You need to be confident that you’re preparing an accurate return.”

Each year, the IRS publishes a list of 12 tax scams called the IRS Dirty Dozen, explained Casey Hill, special agent and public information officer for the Ogden IRS field office.

Among the more important concerns people in Utah should be aware of during this time of the year are identity theft, return prepare fraud, phishing scams and phone scams, he said.

Hill said other guidelines for taxpayers to use in selecting a tax professional include choosing a reputable tax professional that signs and enters a preparer tax identification number on your tax return and provides you with a copy for your records; considering whether the individual or firm will be around to answer questions about the preparation of your tax return, months, even years, after the return has been filed; and asking for a reference from someone who has used a tax preparer and received exceptional service.

Return preparer fraud generally involves the orchestrated preparation and filing of returns by unscrupulous preparers who may claim inflated personal or business expenses, false deductions, unallowable credits, excessive exemptions or fraudulent tax credits, such as the Earned Income Tax Credit, Brock said. For those reasons, he warned taxpayers to “never sign a blank tax form.”

“Each year, we do undercover operations where we send undercover agents in with a W-2 and other tax information in to suspected unscrupulous tax return preparers to get tax returns prepared,” he said. “We have seen multiple times where unscrupulous return preparers will cheat the system by throwing on false credits or expenses in order to get a larger tax refund for the undercover agents.”

Hill also noted that the IRS saw a nearly 400 percent surge in phishing and malware incidents last year.

Typically taxpayers receive scam emails designed to trick them into thinking the messages are official communications from the IRS or others in the tax industry, including tax software companies, he explained. The emails can seek information related to refunds, filing status, confirming personal information, ordering transcripts and verifying PIN information, but they are really just an identity theft ploy to get personal information, he said.

“The important thing to remember is that the IRS never does an initial contact via email or via phone call,” Hill said. “If the IRS is seeking information, you’re going to get a letter in the mail and it’s going to state what information they need and why (the agency) is contacting you. You’re never going to get an initial phone call and you’re never going to get an initial email from the IRS. ”

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People who suspect an income tax fraud scam should contact the agency through the IRS.gov website.

As a reminder, the IRS is also noting the filing deadline to submit 2016 tax returns is Tuesday, April 18, rather than the traditional April 15 date.

This year, April 15 falls on a Saturday, which would usually move the filing deadline to the following Monday — April 17. However, Emancipation Day — a legal holiday in the District of Columbia — will be observed on that Monday, which pushes the nation’s filing deadline to the next business day.

Under the tax law, legal holidays in the District of Columbia affect the filing deadline across the nation.

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