McAfee’s 2024 survey found that 25% of 2,500 U.S. adults said they had lost money to an online tax scam. That is a survey result—not a calculation of total losses across the United States. A later McAfee survey, conducted in January 2026, found that 23% of respondents said they had fallen victim to a tax scam and reported an average victim loss of $1,020. The releases do not establish that the surveys used identical questions or methods, so they should not be treated as a direct trend comparison.
What McAfee’s 2024 study found—and what it did not
McAfee’s March 21, 2024 release describes an online survey of 2,500 U.S. adults. One quarter of respondents said they had lost money to an online tax scam. The finding describes the people surveyed; it does not establish how much money Americans collectively lost nationwide. The release is McAfee’s 2024 tax-scam survey announcement.
One more striking figure has a narrower denominator: among respondents who clicked fraudulent links from supposed tax services, 68% said they lost money. McAfee also reported that 29% of this group said they lost more than $2,500 and 17% more than $10,000. Those percentages apply to link-clickers, not all survey respondents or all U.S. taxpayers.
A separate McAfee release on April 10, 2024 reported an average loss of $8,199 to email or text-message scams. Because the release’s headline and body do not make the relevant average’s denominator clear enough to generalize it to all Americans, it should not be read as a national per-person loss estimate. See McAfee’s April 2024 release.
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What the 2026 survey adds
McAfee’s March 3, 2026 release reports a separate online survey conducted in January 2026 with 3,008 U.S. adults age 18 and older. In that survey, 23% said they had fallen victim to a tax scam, and the average reported loss among victims was $1,020. Only 29% said they felt very confident recognizing a tax scam. These are consumer-survey findings, not government incident counts. The release also discusses McAfee Labs observations based on product telemetry and threat intelligence; those observations are a different type of evidence from survey responses.
The 2024 and 2026 figures cannot establish that scam victimization or losses rose or fell: the releases do not show that every question, denominator, or calculation was identical. Read the 2026 results in McAfee’s 2026 announcement.
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How tax scams try to get your money or information
Scammers may impersonate the IRS through email, text message, social-media direct message, or phone call. Messages can use urgency, promise a refund, or direct recipients to scan a QR code. A link or QR code may lead to a fake site asking for account verification, personal data, or payment; an unsolicited link or attachment can also expose a device to malicious software. The IRS describes these tactics in its 2026 Dirty Dozen scam warning.
McAfee’s 2024 survey release says respondents reported being asked for information such as Social Security or tax identification numbers, birth dates, addresses, email addresses, e-filing PINs, and account passwords. That is what surveyed people said they were asked for, not a census of scam messages.
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Phone calls can use spoofed caller ID or generated voices. The IRS says it generally contacts taxpayers by mail first; it does not make urgent, threatening prerecorded calls, demand immediate payment by phone, or threaten arrest. A caller ID or message that appears official is not proof that the contact is genuine.
How to check a tax message safely
- Do not follow the message’s link or scan its QR code. Avoid opening unexpected attachments, replying with personal information, or making a payment in response to a threatening message.
- Go to IRS.gov yourself. Type the address into your browser or use an official IRS phone number listed on IRS.gov. Check your tax account or contact the agency through that independent route rather than using contact details supplied by the message or caller.
- Report suspicious IRS-related messages using IRS instructions. The IRS advises taxpayers not to click unexpected links or open attachments and to report suspicious IRS-related emails, direct messages, and texts. Follow the current reporting directions on the IRS’s 2026 warning page.
- If you shared tax or identity information, use the IRS identity-theft guidance. Start from IRS.gov rather than a follow-up link or phone number provided by the suspected scammer.
Consider an IRS Identity Protection PIN
An Identity Protection PIN (IP PIN) is an optional six-digit number that helps prevent another person from filing a federal tax return using your Social Security number or Individual Taxpayer Identification Number. The IRS says eligible people with an SSN or ITIN can obtain one. It is a filing safeguard, not a way to verify whether a message or caller is legitimate. See the IRS’s current tax-season scam guidance for information about the IP PIN and other precautions.
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