my husband just received the same similar call stating that he owed money and that they were going to take him to jail if he did not comply to their obligation. SCAM!!
Scam. They demand money for back taxes and tell you if you do not pay you will have cops in your driveway within the hour and be taken to Federal Prison for 5 Yrs.
Total Scam, they id themselves as the IRS and ask for your taxpayer ID# and demand 1/2 of all back taxes otherwise they won't set up a payment arrangement. When I told them I would go in person to the IRS office a few blocks away from my work, they told me the local office couldn't help me and that I would have to deal with them.
Then I asked for him to give me information which he did but then he told me if I didn't meet their obligations I would be thrown in jail. I told them to come get me and hung up!
This is a Pakistan or India based IRS scam. Do not fall for it. The IRS does not initiate any legal action via phone.
Read http://www.treasury.gov/tigta/press/press_tigta-2014-03.htm
As general background information, here are a few things you can do:
1) Report it to TIGTA under http://www.treasury.gov/tigta/contact_report_scam.shtml especially if you have become a victim (lost money, gave personal information etc.). You can also file a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission at ftc.gov/complaint (include “IRS Telephone Scam" in your complaint). This way you can also help the government establish specific fraud patterns.
2) Help kill their phone lines. The scammers use Voice over IP lines (e.g. magicJack (Ymax corporation)) to make it seem as if they are calling from the US. This is always against these companys' terms of service and can lead to immediate termination of their contract and blocking of their IP addresses for future attempts to register. Do a reverse look up of their telephone number (e.g. www.whitepages.com) to identify the Voice over IP provider and report it to the company and/or law enforcement (local police and/or state attorney general)
3) If you are really annoyed: call or write to your representative in Congress. As these scams happen all over the country maybe this will trigger a reaction and provide US law enforcement agencies with the political backing and the resources they need to work in India and Pakistan together with local authorities (it can happen, read: http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/ex-call-cen ... mmission-320427). A US task force has already been set up in Jamaica to nab scammers there (see http://www.ice.gov/doclib/news/library/reports/cornerstone/cornerstone7-1.pdf). You can use the following template for your letter (more powerful!) or email:
Was really freaked out by this. I did tell them the last 4 digits of my social security number. I hope this doesn't do something bad to me. I asked for this guy's supervisor, then he hung up.