Joliet Police Warn of IRS Scam

Joliet police are warning residents of an Internal Revenue Service telephone scam in which callers claiming to be with the IRS are contacting area residents and demanding immediately payment for taxes owed.

“The IRS reports that many targets of this scam are recent immigrants and threats of arrest, deportation or revocation of driver’s licenses are used to intimidate the victims into paying over the phone,” police said in a press release.

Citizens should know that the IRS will always send written notification through the mail of any taxes that are due, and will never ask for a credit card, debit card or pre-payment card over the phone.

If you receive a phone call from someone claiming to be from the IRS, here’s what you should do:

• If you know you owe taxes or you think you might owe taxes, call the IRS at 800-829-1040. The IRS employees can help you with a payment issue, if there really is such an issue.
• If you know you don’t owe taxes or have no reason to think that you owe any taxes, you are asked to call and report the incident to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration at 800-366-4484.

More information can be found on the IRS website.