Tax Season Scams Are Starting Early — Here's the One That Hits Small Businesses First

It’s February. That magical time of year when your accountant gets twitchy, your bookkeeper starts sweating, and everyone’s knee-deep in W-2s, 1099s, and too many spreadsheets.

But here’s the thing no one adds to the calendar: the first big tax-season mess usually isn’t a form — it’s a scam.

And the first one to hit? It’s sneaky, believable, and aimed right at small businesses. It might already be sitting in someone’s inbox.

The W-2 Scam: It’s Simple, Sneaky, and Dangerous

Here’s how it goes down:

Someone in your company (usually payroll or HR) gets an email that looks like it’s from the CEO or some big boss.

The message is short, casual, and sounds like a normal tax-season request:

“Hey, I need copies of all employee W-2s for a meeting with the accountant. Can you send them over ASAP? Swamped today.”

Sounds reasonable, right? It’s tax season. People are busy. Urgent requests happen.

So your employee hits “send.”

Except — plot twist — the email wasn’t from the CEO. It was from a scammer using a fake address that looks just real enough.

Now that scammer has every employee’s:

• Full name
• Social Security number
• Home address
• Salary info

In other words, everything they need to steal identities and file fake tax returns before your employees even get a chance.

What Happens Next? It’s Not Pretty.

The first clue something’s wrong usually shows up when an employee files their taxes and gets this:

“Your return was already filed.”

Yikes.

Someone already filed using their name. Already claimed the refund. Already spent it.

Now that employee’s stuck dealing with the IRS, credit monitoring, and the joyless maze of identity theft cleanup.

Multiply that by however many people are on your payroll. Now imagine telling your team that all their personal info got leaked... because someone fell for a fake email.

That’s not just a tech fail. That’s a trust disaster.

Why This Scam Works So Well

This isn’t your grandma’s “I’m a Nigerian prince” email. It looks real. It works because:

• The timing is perfect. W-2s fly around in February. Nobody questions it.
• The request seems normal. It’s not “buy 50 gift cards.” It’s “send W-2s.”
• It feels urgent — but not weird. “I’m slammed, can you send this?” fits the vibe of a busy office.
• The sender looks legit. Scammers do homework. They know names. They copy writing styles.
• Employees want to be helpful. Especially when it looks like it’s from the boss.

How to Stop This (Before It Hits Your Inbox)

The good news: you don’t need fancy tech to beat this. Just a few smart rules.

1. Make it a rule: No W-2s via email. Ever. No exceptions. Not even if it’s “from the CEO.” W-2s don’t belong in email.
2. Verify requests in another way. Phone call. In person. Slack. Carrier pigeon. Whatever. Just don’t reply to the email.
3. Have a 10-minute team huddle this week. Sit down with payroll/HR. Show them this scam. Tell them how you handle it. Done.
4. Lock down access to sensitive data. Use multi-factor authentication (MFA) for any system that touches employee info.
5. Make double-checking normal. Employees should feel proud, not paranoid, for saying, “Hey, just making sure this is real.”

Simple, right? And way easier than dealing with a data breach.

The Bigger Picture

The W-2 scam is just the warm-up act.

Between now and April, scammers will unleash the whole tax-season circus:

• Fake IRS notices demanding “immediate” payment
• Phishing emails disguised as tax software updates
• Messages from “your accountant” with sketchy links
• Fake invoices that look like tax-related expenses

Why now? Because everyone’s distracted. Everyone’s moving fast. And asking for money doesn’t seem weird during tax season.

Is Your Business Ready?

If you’ve already locked things down, high five! You’re ahead of the game.

If not? Now’s the time to fix it — not after someone clicks “send” on a scam.

Book a quick 10-minute discovery call with us and we’ll walk through:

• How to secure payroll and HR access
• Your W-2 sharing policy (or lack of it)
• How to spot spoofed emails before they fool anyone
• One easy policy change most small businesses miss

Book your 10-minute discovery call here

Don’t wait for a tax-season meltdown. Scam season is already here — but your business doesn’t have to be the next victim.