Brian Lairer on WNYC.

So as we approach the IRS tax deadline next week, week from today, we're going to talk about something that I'm sure a lot of you have come across tax scams.

You know those texts and emails claiming to be from the IRS telling you that you have to

urgently submit your information or pay some fees or something or else you will be subject to

penalties.

Well, according to the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center, government impersonation scams led to

$400 million in losses in 2024, the last year they have figures for, and a lot of that was

through tax scams.

Now, tax scams aren't exactly new, but in the past few years, the growth of artificial intelligence

has made these

operations a whole lot more convincing to many people. There used to be pretty obvious warning

signs that a lot of people could pick up on, you know, major typos or other kinds of suspicious

language. But with the help of AI, scammers have gotten a lot better at posing as the IRS.

And it's all happening while the Trump administration has been slashing IRS enforcement funding

and manpower used to go after these bad actors.

So in the chaos of this tax filing season, it's easy to fall for these traps.

So as part of our ongoing cybersecurity series here on the Brian Lerr show, we're going to

try to help out a little bit now.

With us, to give us all some tips and tricks to avoid getting scammed this tax season is

Kelly Phillips Erb, a tax attorney, senior writer at Forbes, and author of the blog, Tax Girl.

Hey, Kelly, welcome to WNYC.

Hi, thanks for having me.

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