Tax Season Scams Are on the Rise — Here’s How Aspire Keeps You Protected

It’s officially tax season, and with that comes many online scams that are generated to fool people into disclosing sensitive financial information. As many look to either file themselves or to get help, it’s important to be diligent. Tax scams are commonly used for social engineering tactics, phishing scams, and fraud.

Forms of Attack
In 2025, malicious actors are not isolating their attacks to email. Attack vectors are more complex than ever, with Generative AI (GenAI) providing methods of creating multiple touchpoints. Attackers can leverage text messages, calls, and even voice cloning as tools to trick their targets.1 These GenAI attacks can be very convincing and are often targeted toward individuals considered valuable for their access to financial information or other resources.

Malware can be crafted and delivered in standard tax-themed emails with titles like “ invoice.pdf.” They may be sent to individuals with language including tax deductions and rebates.2 Text messages are another form of targeted communications with convincing messages intended to fool users ,often followed by shortened links that lead to fraudulent websites.
Scams that leverage social media often include some telling aspects. They almost always include both a call to action and a sense of urgency. These may take the form of demands or threats, hinting at consequences if the user does not pay immediately. They may also require unusual forms of payment such as gift cards.3

The IRS does not “initiate contact with taxpayers by email, text messages or social media channels to request personal or financial information.” 4 The IRS site contains information on phishing, emails, calls, and other requests that appear to come from the agency.
Attackers may also pose as professionals attempting to assist with tax filing. They may offer to help create an individual’s online account at IRS.gov. If malicious actors gain users’ credentials, they often follow up by submitting fraudulent tax returns to snare a large refund.5

Protecting Yourself
As a rule, never assume that the sender or any links included in communications are legitimate.. For example, if your financial institution emails about your credentials, do not click on links or attachments. Navigate to the bank’s legitimate website on your own. Attackers are crafty, and fraudulent sites often look like the real thing.
Never assume that the sender’s name is their identity. The friendly “from” field is often the only displayed information in mail applications, and phishing attacks often spoof the sender’s name. This is especially dangerous on mobile devices where the full sender’s email address is not readily displayed. Text messages from both known and unknown numbers should be treated with the same level of caution. Scammers can appear as known contacts to improve the chances of a target clicking a link. Remember, the IRS will not communicate via text without express permission granted by the taxpayer.

Protecting Your Users
Users are bombarded with information across email, collaboration tools, and devices every day. It’s important to educate them on issues like phishing, social engineering, scams, and sharing important or confidential information. Steps to consider include sanctioned, controlled, and customized phishing campaigns performed within the company by trained personnel, and personalized security awareness training.6 These offerings are now referred to as human risk management. The goals of these trainings are both to increase awareness, and to leverage the users’ contributions to the organization’s overall security posture.
Train users to employ caution any time their sensitive information or that of the company may be at risk. Have a mechanism in place they can use to submit suspected phishing or fraudulent communications and implement a security solution that categorizes and blocks access to harmful, spoofed, or suspicious domains. DNS security is an easy first step in protecting users.
Adopt processes and solutions that can identify, categorize, and prevent outbound communication of corporate intellectual property. Leveraging Data Loss Prevention (DLP) solutions can help prevent improper transmission of important data, from both malicious actors and well-meaning insiders.

Pause, Verify, Protect
Scammers leverage newsworthy and topical events when crafting their social engineering. This messaging may center on seasonal (March Madness, holidays, back-to-school), topical (natural disasters), political, or newsworthy events. Tax season provides an opportunity for bad actors to target nearly anyone with these scams. They may appear as the IRS, tax professionals, or others in the financial field. Messages may look legitimate but include telltale signs like a sense of urgency and a prompt to take action.
Treat all communications with caution. Never assume the sender, attachments, or links are legitimate. Always use the organization’s official website. Familiarize yourself with mechanisms to report these communications as fraudulent, potentially fraudulent, or malicious. Use the same degree of caution in digital communications as in face-to-face interactions.

How Can Aspire Help?

Aspire Technology Partners can help your organization with improving security awareness, reducing risk exposure, and improving cybersecurity resilience. We provide multiple solutions including DNS security, Data Loss Prevention (DLP) tools and policies, tailored security awareness training, and phishing simulations. Aspire Managed Services provide end-to-end management of your technology environments. Operating from Aspire’s purpose-built 24×7 Network & Security Operations Center (NSOC), our experienced analysts and engineers leverage the latest technologies and tools to ensure the availability, performance and security of your IT infrastructure. Our team acts as an integrated strategic asset for your organization, providing technical expertise, operational consistency, and scale. We enable more efficient use of limited IT resources, freeing your team from mundane operational tasks to focus on more important business initiatives.

1. Sloan, Brian. 19 Feb 2025. 5 tax scams in 2025 and how to avoid them. CNBC Select. https://www.cnbc.com/select/tax-scams-how-to-avoid-them
2. Sjouwerman, Stu. Jan 2025. Tax-Themed Phishing Campaign Delivers Malware Via Microsoft Management Console Files. Security Awareness Training Blog. KnowBe4. Tax-Themed Phishing Campaign Delivers Malware Via Microsoft Management Console Files
3. Ponder, Meghen. 29 Jan 2025. New 2025 Text Message Scam Alert: How to Avoid Tax Scams and Protect Your Information. TaxAct, Inc. New 2025 Tax Scam: How to Avoid Tax Scams and Protect Your Information
4. N.A. 2024. Report phishing and online scams. Internal Revenue Service. Report phishing | Internal Revenue Service
5. N.A. 27 Feb 2025. Dirty Dozen tax scams for 2025: IRS warns taxpayers to watch out for dangerous threats. Internal Revenue Service. Dirty Dozen tax scams for 2025: IRS warns taxpayers to watch out for dangerous threats | Internal Revenue Service
6. N.A. 2025. What is Social Engineering? KnowBe4. What Is Social Engineering? | KnowBe4