Around this time every year millions of emails arrive proclaiming the IRS needs you to verify your information, needs more information, has money to give back to you, and the list goes on and on. To conform, all you need to do is cough up some very valuable information.
They all invoke some type of high emotion, either fear or excitement. Both can cloud clear judgment, and reasoning. And it works, all too well.
Lets look at this from a logical and simple point of view. What is the main goal of the IRS? To collect tax revenue. What else do they do? Audit you to try and collect more tax revenue. Have you ever heard of them doing anything else?
Those two functions just about wrap it up.
So if we look at what they don’t do here is my simple list of 5 rules, and read rule #1 at least 50 times:
Rule 1)The IRS doesn’t ask for an email address on your 1040
Rule 2)The IRS doesn’t ask for missing information via email (See rule #1)
Rule 3)The IRS doesn’t ask for more information via email (See rule #1)
Rule 4)The IRS certainly doesn’t offer additional refund money via email (See rule #1)
Rule 5)The IRS absolutely doesn’t locate bonus or extra money just for you
Now go back and read rule #1 above again. If you can remember that, you can be assured that any message you get proclaiming anything from the IRS is a fake and a phishing scam.
So when you see the words IRS in an email for any reason instantly think of my IRS #1 rule and then hit the DELETE key.
There are many things you can EASILY do to protect yourself for FREE. Take a few minutes to recognize them, and you would be doing much more for yourself by just changing a few simple habits that leave you vulnerable.
