06 August 2019 15:39, UTC

In the wake of legitimate IRS letters to US taxpayers trading cryptocurrencies, there were a few instances recorded of fraudsters trying to take advantage of the situation.

Dozens of US citizens have reported receiving letters from the IRS claiming that they owe the agency a substantial amount in taxes due to their activities with cryptocurrency trading. Naturally, scammers don’t have the resources to determine the probability of a tax payer’s involvement in cryptos, therefore most of the letters were misplaced or irrelevant to the recipients.

The information was first spread by Forbes, which claims that fraudsters are doing nothing but taking advantage of the lack of knowledge most US citizens have about the process of taxing these digital assets. According to Forbes, these fraudsters were also threatening to use legal action against those that didn’t comply. Things like jail time and large fines were the two most mentioned threats.

This is actually nothing new for US citizens. In the past, and even today hundreds of Americans are being called by IRS scammers usually located in countries like India or Pakistan. These scammers inform their victims about a pending tax payment, which if not processed within the day, would warrant an arrest and even jail time.

US authorities are investigating the case and trying to figure out where the letters came from, but it will probably end up the same way it happened with the scam calls which were supposed to be “investigated” and “taken care of”.

Image courtesy of Clark Howard

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