The average tax scam victim loses $1,020 - and they're younger than you'd think

McAfee's 2026 Tax Season Survey warns of an active campaign of tax-related cybercrime: scammers contact taxpayers via phone, email, and text and direct victims to lookalike websites to steal credentials, SSNs, payment data, or charge fake fees. The survey found 1,468 malicious or suspicious tax-themed domains between Sept 1, 2025 and Feb 19, 2026 (about 43 per day), reports that 23% of respondents fell for a tax scam and that nearly 20% lost money with an average loss of $1,020, and highlights younger adults (18–24) as especially vulnerable. Recommended mitigations include not engaging with unsolicited tax contacts, verifying issues via official IRS/state sites, avoiding links in messages, securing accounts with strong, unique passwords and 2FA, reporting incidents to the FTC and IRS, and using security software and anti-spam/phone-blocking tools.