Your telephone rings and upon answering, you hear, "This is Joe from the IRS.  You have an outstanding balance on your taxes that must be paid within 3 hours or we will send the sheriff to your residence."

We have heard this from several clients in the past year.  There has been a lot of coverage on the news about this too, yet we continue to hear occasionally of someone who gets worried or believes they might really be in trouble and does send money.

Please know, the IRS will not contact you by phone, or even email.  You will always receive a letter, in fact several letters usually, before anything even remotely close to this would happen.  This is a scam, and if you try to call back the number, you will not get an answer.  They are even leaving messages on voicemails and then following up with more calls later. 

If you have any questions or concerns about the IRS or receive any written correspondence from them, please ask your Ketel Thorstenson, LLP professional for assistance.  As your Friends for Life, we urge you to not fall for phone or email scams, and to always ask us before you send money to anything like this.