"George Shea" ..

- quote -

I recently became aware of a growing trend in fraudsters,
pursuing the income and assets of elder citizens with
correspondence that has and official looking letter head &
envelopes of the IRS and other government agencies.

These slim balls are scaring elders into thinking that they
either owe a debt or are at risk of audit & assessment, and
gain their confidences to the point of convincing the elder
to turn over cash funds for personal pickup.

In rare circumstances it might be a legitimate inquiry, but
more often it's a con artist taking advantage of the {Good
Faith & Name} of SSA, IRS and other trusted or feared
Government agencies.

Personally I recall seeing much junk my Father in Law would
get in the course of a week, and the daily barrage of
charity cold calls.

This information came from a recent Group meeting where we
had TIGTA giving a pep talk on a variety of issues.

<< -------------------------------------------------> << The Charter and the Guidelines for submitting > << messages to this newsgroup are at www.asktax.org > << ------------------------------------------------->

George Shea <gesheax[at]xcomcast.net> writes:

- quote -

My best guess is that her 89 year old brain became a 90 year
old brain, and she got confused by the back of the 1099-SSA,
which says something along the line of "You may have to
pay...."

Or she could have run into someone "helpful." I spent 30
minutes last year with an old lady explaining to her that
she didn't have to file, wasn't going to have to file unless
she hit the lottery, and could file for the old people state
benefits but didn't have to. She was thrilled.

So there she is last Saturday. "Someone" told her she had
to file, and she'd been up nights worrying about 2002 as
well as 2003.

Phil Marti
Topeka, KS

<< -------------------------------------------------> << The Charter and the Guidelines for submitting > << messages to this newsgroup are at www.asktax.org > << ------------------------------------------------->

- quote -

Nothing has changed in the tax laws this year in that area.
But I have seen a routine notice that "some SS may be
taxable" that apparently was sent out by the SSA in some of
their mailings. That's probably the cause of her concern.

--
Don EA in Upstate NY

<< -------------------------------------------------> << The Charter and the Guidelines for submitting > << messages to this newsgroup are at www.asktax.org > << ------------------------------------------------->

I'm hoping someone can point me in the correct direction
here: an elderly relative (90+) was here for Easter dinner
tonight and put me on the spot by telling me she received
"something" from Social Security indicating that she would
need to file federal income taxes this year, after not
having to file for almost 15 years.

To the best of my knowledge, her sole income sources are a
small pension from her deceased husband (he probably never
made more than $25,000 a year when he was working--very
unskilled blue collar worker) and Social Security. She's on
Medicaid, and I have no reason to believe that there's any
income hanky-panky going on here. Certainly as far as her
income is concerned, nothing significant has changed in the
last 15 years.

She's going to get me this "something" from Social Security
this week so I can see it, but given that April 15 is fast
approaching I'm wondering in the meantime if there is
something here that rings a bell with someone who could
point me to some change that would necessitate her filing
this year.

Many thanks for any and all help!

shea

<< -------------------------------------------------> << The Charter and the Guidelines for submitting > << messages to this newsgroup are at www.asktax.org > << ------------------------------------------------->