The IRS Just Added a New Scam to Its 2026 List — and It Targets Fund and REIT Investors

A New Entry, Aimed at a Familiar Audience

Every year, the IRS publishes a "Dirty Dozen" list of the tax scams it's seeing the most — part public warning, part enforcement signal. The 2026 list, released in March and reiterated in April as part of the agency's ongoing "Slam the Scam" awareness campaign, swapped out one of last year's entries for something new: a scheme built around fabricated or inflated claims of undistributed long-term capital gains, reported on IRS Form 2439.

If you've never heard of Form 2439, that's normal — it's a niche form that funds and real estate investment trusts (REITs) use to notify shareholders about capital gains the fund itself didn't distribute in cash but is still passing along for tax purposes. Precisely because it's obscure, the IRS says it's now seeing a surge in bogus versions of it: fabricated filings, including some falsely linked to organizations that aren't legitimate investment funds or REITs at all, or that misuse the names of real, well-known ones.

This article walks through what the IRS is warning about and why, so readers can recognize the red flags — it isn't tax-planning advice, and it isn't a substitute for reviewing your own tax situation with a qualified preparer.

Why This One Is Different From "Click This Link" Scams

Most items on the IRS's annual scam list are things people intuitively recognize as scams once explained: phishing texts pretending to be the IRS, fake charities after a disaster, preparers who won't sign your return. The Form 2439 scheme is a different animal, because it doesn't necessarily arrive as an obvious con — it can show up as a plausible-looking tax document or a preparer's claim that you're entitled to a credit or gain adjustment tied to a fund you may or may not actually hold.

That makes it worth flagging specifically for anyone who owns mutual funds, REITs, or similar pooled investments. If a preparer, promoter, or unsolicited document tells you that you're due an undistributed capital-gains adjustment you didn't already know about from your actual brokerage statements, that's a moment to verify directly with the fund or REIT itself (or your brokerage) — not to take the claim at face value.

Two More Scams Worth Knowing About

The IRS's full 2026 list runs to twelve items, but two others are especially relevant if you have any self-employment or gig income, or if you get tax tips from social media:

A bogus "self-employment tax credit." Promoters on TikTok, YouTube, and Facebook have been advertising that self-employed and gig workers can claim a large credit tied to "COVID-related payments" that most people simply don't qualify for. The IRS says it's closely reviewing these claims, and anyone who files based on one risks having to repay the money along with penalties and interest. If you file a Schedule C or otherwise have self-employment income, treat any "you probably qualify for thousands back" pitch from a stranger online with real skepticism rather than as pre-qualified advice.

"Ghost" preparers. These are preparers who complete a return for a fee but won't sign it or include their IRS Preparer Tax Identification Number (PTIN) — sometimes a sign the preparer knows the return contains something they don't want their name attached to. Under IRS rules, the taxpayer remains legally responsible for everything on the return regardless of who prepared it. That's exactly why the "ghost" part matters: an unsigned return leaves you no paper trail back to whoever actually filled it out.

Both of these sit alongside a broader theme the IRS flagged across the whole 2026 list: misleading tax advice spreading on social media, where viral "hacks" encourage people to claim credits or deductions they don't actually qualify for, sometimes with real civil or criminal exposure for the person who signs the return.

An Older Warning That Still Applies: The Passive-Income Trap

A related, slightly older IRS warning is worth mentioning here because the underlying trap hasn't gone away: some preparers have pitched clients on purchasing clean-energy tax credits (a transfer mechanism created under federal clean-energy law) and using them to offset ordinary income — wages, Social Security, retirement withdrawals.

The catch is that purchased credits are subject to passive-activity-loss rules, meaning they can generally only offset passive income, and most taxpayers don't have meaningful passive income to offset. Buying into this kind of pitch can mean owing the credit back, plus interest and potentially penalties, if the IRS identifies the mismatch.

What to Actually Do With This

None of this is a reason to panic about your own return, and it isn't a checklist of tax moves to make. It's closer to a list of red flags to recognize before you file: an unexpected capital-gains form tied to a fund you can't verify, a stranger online promising a large credit you've never heard of, a preparer who won't sign what they prepared, or a credit-purchase pitch that sounds like it offsets income it can't actually offset.

In each case, the same basic habit helps: verify unfamiliar claims against your own account statements or a licensed preparer before they end up on a filed return — since you're the one who remains responsible for it either way.

This article is educational commentary on public IRS guidance, not personalized tax, legal, or investment advice.