Easy Ways to Spot Suspicious Calls from Those Claiming to be the IRS

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With tax season in full swing, phony IRS calls are more frequent than usual. It’s important to stay apprised of the scams and how they can illicit your personal information for financial gain. Due to the importance of maintaining compliance with IRS requirements, most people are quick to hand over their information. Doing so can result in your identity being compromised and the resolution for such requires an incredible amount of work to resolve. It is particularly dangerous for business owners as your livelihood can be stripped from under you overnight.

The IRS offers some great tips for vetting the calls and discerning phony from real calls.

The first is an understanding for what they are typically using as bait. They may demand money, or say you are due money. They likely will know a significant amount of your personal information and mask their phone numbers from the IRS. Some will go one step further and provide fake names and IRS identification numbers.

The IRS Commissioner, John Koskinen states “We have formal processes in place for people with tax issues. The IRS respects taxpayer rights, and these angry, shake-down calls are not how we do business.” According to the IRS website, there are 5 things the IRS will never do:

  1. Call to demand immediate payment, nor will we call about taxes owed without first having mailed you a bill.
  2. Demand that you pay taxes without giving you the opportunity to question or appeal the amount they say you owe.
  3. Require you to use a specific payment method for your taxes, such as a prepaid debit card.
  4. Ask for credit or debit card numbers over the phone.
  5. Threaten to bring in local police or other law-enforcement groups to have you arrested for not paying.

The IRS does not use unsolicited email, text messages or any social media to discuss your personal tax issue. One way to ensure that you are up to date on taxes is to work with a PEO – they will make sure that you are following the correct codes, regulations and tax requirements. Contact us today to find out which PEO is right for you!

What Are Pre-verified Resumes?

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As HR or hiring managers we’ve all been there; staring at a stack of resumes and not sure where to begin. We go through a “weeding out” phase that aims to eliminate anyone that is not qualified. But then we still have a stack of candidates that need to be verified. Did they really get a master’s degree from Boston College? Does this person really have 8 years of real-world experience in IT? Do they really have a clean record? Verify all of these details for all candidates and by the time you’re done days will have gone by!

This is exactly why many companies are gravitating toward pre-verified resume services. Pre-verified service providers are third parties that certify a person’s credentials before he or she advances in the application or interviewing process.

An employer signs up for this service, and then the service provider confirms important details on the resume surrounding work history, educational background, and certifications. The candidates that “pass the test” are passed along to the employer. This not only saves employers time in the hiring process, but also prevents companies from getting too far along only to realize that certain information was fabricated or false on a candidate’s resume.

But are these services all they’re hyped up to be? It certainly depends on what type of business you are and what types of positions are available at your company. A pre-verified process by a third party is not as customized or specific as the process you may currently have in place. It’s much more black and white, whereas you may “bend the rules” every now and then if a candidate lacks a degree but makes up for it by being a great cultural fit with lots of determination and a track record of success on the job. If someone else was screening these resumes, would you ever get the chance to meet this person? Or would they disappear in the pre-verification process?

However, if you’re a staffing company that needs 60 bartenders within the next 5 days, all having a minimum of 5 years of experience, a pre-verification service may be the perfect tool for moving things along quickly!

Did you know that Employer Solutions Plus represents various types of outsourced HR solutions? Through partnerships with PEOs, HROs, and various project-based service providers, we’re able to find the perfect fit for businesses of all shapes and sizes!

Call us at 727-698-6207 if you want to learn more about solutions in hiring.

 

Social Media Screening – Is it Legal?

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We live in a very digital world today where information about anyone or anything is often very accessible. So let’s chat about that recent graduate who just applied for an entry level position at your company … As a potential employer, can you view her Facebook profile or Twitter account that’s published for all to see?

You can, yes, but it’s certainly not recommended. Here’s why:

Social profiles contain information that you as the potential employer would never see on a resume or cover letter. Social media opens the door to learning much more about a candidate such as their religion, sexual orientation, and race – things that are irrelevant to filling the position and adequately performing the job’s functions.

In “researching” this particular information, you can put your company at risk for various discrimination claims. Online employment discrimination is sometimes conscious and sometimes unconscious, meaning that a hiring manager or HR professional might innocently check a Facebook profile or Twitter account without realizing the page’s information affects their hiring decision.

Current policy does create legal risks for those scanning through social media pages during the hiring process IF managers are caught using that information in a discriminatory fashion. Here’s an example: let’s say you’re an employer in the state of Minnesota that prefers to employ healthy and responsible individuals. You decide not to hire a specific woman because her Facebook profile has countless pictures of her drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes.

In Minnesota, it is unlawful for an employer to prohibit a prospective employee from using lawful consumable products, such as alcohol and tobacco. If your candidate catches wind of why they were not hired, or someone on your team accidentally lets them know – you’re in big trouble! And, Minnesota is not the only state. More than half of the U.S. states prohibit employers from taking an adverse employment action based on an employee or potential employee’s lawful conduct on their own time.

Because fairly (and legally) monitoring a candidate’s social media profile is difficult to monitor and manage as an employer, it is recommended that companies explicitly instruct and train hiring teams to not look at a candidates’ online presence. More often than not, it’s better to be safe than sorry.

If you need to access online information for any reason, employers should consider hiring a third-party to review the candidate’s social media profile and filter out any information about membership in a protected class, so that the profile and information you are looking at as a hiring manager is only information that can be lawfully considered in the hiring process.

Social media compliance is sticky, as is employment law. If you have a question or need help with a particular situation, contact Employer Solutions Plus at 727-698-6207.

 

Background Checks: What an Applicant’s Credit Report Can Tell You

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We’ve talked about background checks before here at Employer Solutions Plus, specifically “The Importance of Background Checks When Hiring at Law Firms” and “The Importance of Background Checks Within the Healthcare Industry.”

A professional background check will uncover a lot about your applicant. There are certain areas that will stick out like sore thumbs: past employers that are disappointed in this applicant, past encounters with the law … but there’s one thing that employers are often unsure of what to do with: the applicant’s credit score.

Here’s what a credit score can tell you:

  • How responsible and organized an applicant is
  • How financially responsible they are
  • High credit utilization or worse, 100% credit utilization, can reveal that this person is in over their head and unable to stick to a budget.
  • Significant card activity or extensive debt can imply that the applicant is seeking a job for a specific reason – do they really wish to work at your company? Or do they simply want to pay off their existing debt and expensive lifestyle?
  • Recent late fees are important to look at when you’re considering an existing employee for a promotion or different position within your company – late fees imply that something in their life has recently changed and this also results in stress inside and outside of work.

As you can see, a credit score can often reflect the type of person you have in front of you or the situation that person is in. However, if you’re going to run credit reports you must follow the federal laws outlined within the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), which includes giving the applicant a fair warning of what you intend to look at (along with a copy of the report), and give the applicant an official adverse action notice if you decide not to hire them because of their credit report.

If you work with a PEO, we urge you to utilize their knowledge, tools, and expertise when it comes to background checks, so that your business stays within compliance. If you don’t currently work with a PEO, contact the team at Employer Solutions Plus for a trusted referral.