If it does come by Post Office, look to see if the postage is from a postage meter or some other non-government franking. That is a dead give-away. Any concern about validity can be eased by either the local IRS office (requires patience and time) or by finding a local year-round tax prep office and taking it to them. (Yes, I am an Enrolled Agent and work seasonally for HR Block.) Such an office can look at the addresses and the format to see if it appears valid to that point.
The obvious fact is that, given our complex tax code and ominous IRS, the scare factor requires us to WASTE EFFORT to be SURE that such is a scam, not a 'legitimate' letter!
An easier option is to ignore it.
If it is really the IRS they will be sure to send you lots of certified letters in the future!
We get “This is the IRS, we will arrest you....” phone calls multiple times a week on a house phone we always let go to messages.
Sounds like people sitting in a call center (the background chatter) in India or somewhere - always with a heavy accent.
The mind-numbing part of the story was that the payment was demanded in iTunes cards...and people complied!
Never toy with a suspected scam artist
"In a recent week, out of 120 people who reported paying scammers, 100 did so using iTunes gift cards."
What I would recommend is to establish an online account with the IRS. It is not hard to do if you have a few pieces of info from you tax return. You can then log in, and see the status of your taxes.
If you get something through the mail, you could just look online and see if there is an official notice attached to your account. Chances are, there won’t be.
Mail them back an obscene answer. If no armed men show up at your door a few weeks later, it was a scam.
I got call. I told them I get law suits every year from the IRS. They hung up.
“The obvious fact is that, given our complex tax code and ominous IRS, the scare factor requires us to WASTE EFFORT to be SURE that such is a scam, not a ‘legitimate’ letter! “
And right down to the “worker bees” the IRS is as crooked as a dog’s hind leg. We own an office building. We get 1099’s from our tenants that report their rent payments to the IRS. Nevertheless, every other year, the IRS “picks out” one of our tenant’s 1099’s and sends us a bill for the “unpaid taxes” claiming we failed to include the income. So we have so send a breakdown of all the 1099’s and the aggregate income to “prove” we included the one they picked out. It is a scam. They are simply fishing for money because they can’t know whether we did or didn’t include the particular 1099. I guess they just hope we will pay them money we don’t owe, because what they send is a bill, not an inquiry.
If you say,’i believe you are breaking the law by calling me’ and then they hang up..it’s probably a scam.:)