And around the world, scammers are beginning their own annual ritual of disrupting lives and ripping off U.S. taxpayers through W-2 scams. A W-2 is the Internal Revenue Service document U.S. employers provide to each of their employees shortly after the end of each year. It lists an employee’s earnings, tax withholding, Social Security number and address -- in other words, everything a scammer needs to file a fraudulent tax return. Scammers file fake tax returns for real taxpayers, get refunds from the IRS and state tax authorities and disappear with the funds. Increasing Prevalence, Increasing SophisticationThe IRS reported first seeing W-2 phishing scams in 2016.

Source: Forbes March 29, 2018 12:56 UTC