With the ongoing recession, it is not uncommon to find tax scams getting more widespread. Most tax scams are aimed at either stealing your identity online or claiming your tax refund. If you have not been a victim of any form of tax fraud, prevention is better than cure. And a huge part of prevention has to do with knowing the wiles of the scammers and their tactics. Here are some of the most common tax scam tactics you should be aware of.

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About a month ago, three officials from Wegelin, Switzerland’s oldest bank, were indicted for abetting tax evasion. Now the bank itself has gone down the same path as the Justice Department indicts Wegelin on charges of assisting wealthy American taxpayers hide their taxable income in offshore accounts with the bank. It is estimated that at least $1.2 billion has been hidden in bank accounts held in Wegelin, based in St Gallen.

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After collecting more than $4.4 billion in tax revenue from the first two voluntary offshore disclosure programs (VODP) in 2009 and 2011, the IRS has launched its third and latest disclosure program aimed at getting more taxpayers with offshore accounts to declare their assets therein. One prominent difference between the current VODP is that this newest one is going to be open indefinitely. The present VODP is similar to the ones held before with these following points:

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Tampa, Florida has been identified as one of the cities of high identity theft in the country, the others being Miami, Atlanta, Birmingham, AL, Washington D.C., Chicago, New York, Phoenix, and Los Angeles, according to the IRS. Tampa is one of the areas covered in a 23-state federal sweep targeting check-cashing operations and other businesses. The IRS says identity theft is most commonly carried out as stealing social security numbers from places like schools and hospitals.

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Three men who are former UBS clients, were indicted on charges of hiding millions of dollars in taxable income from the IRS using their offshore accounts. Two of the three, Stephen M. Kerr and Michael Quiel, ran capital venture firms while the third is former San Diego lawyer, Christopher M. Rusch. Rusch was arrested January 29 after being expelled from Panama at the behest of the US government. The charges against Kerr and Quiel were for filing false tax returns in 2007 and 2008 and for failing to file Reports of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBAR) for those years.

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