Tax Influencers Face Off Over Scams and Tips, While IRS Looks On

Jasmine DiLucci begins the video like most on her popular YouTube channel, clad in a colorful turtleneck and watching an online influencer spew what she deems bad tax advice.

“This is what we call ‘making [stuff] up,’” DiLucci interjects, as a man claims taxpayers can write off haircuts as a business expense. She spends the rest of the minute-long video lobbing tax law at the YouTuber.

The IRS lists “bad social media advice” as among taxpayers’ biggest threats this year, but it’s a problem the agency has struggled to counter. A handful of private CPAs like DiLucci have taken up that fight in the last few years, some getting hundreds of thousands of followers and driving clients to their in-person businesses.

And those private tax professionals armed with good lighting and snappy one-liners may be best positioned to counter bad tax advice in a way the IRS never could, said Kathleen Thomas, a law professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who studies online tax misinformation.

“It’s just hard for me to imagine the government playing a role in any meaningful way,” she said.

‘Something New and Concerning’

Last year, a new tax strategy was making the rounds on social media ahead of filing season, especially among a loose constellation of business owners and personal finance influencers. They urged taxpayers to claim the fuel tax credit, which reimburses mainly farmers for fuel for their equipment.

Some peddled it as a benefit for anyone who put gas in their car, an obvious misuse of the credit, said Danny Werfel, IRS commissioner at the time.

Thousands of returns poured into the IRS from workers claiming tens of thousands of dollars in fuel tax credits. The IRS held up refunds as it tried to sort out the fraudulent claims, Werfel said.

Scammers have long peddled bogus tax schemes, but Werfel remembers thinking then that the misinformation on social media was different from what the IRS had faced before.

“We’re seeing something new and concerning,” Werfel said in a recent interview.

IRS spokespeople didn’t immediately provide a comment on the agency’s social media strategy.

DiLucci, a Dallas-based tax attorney, used to give more general tax advice online, to a limited audience. But she started countering some of that questionable tax advice in reaction-style YouTube videos a little more than a year ago, and has since racked up more than 500,000 subscribers and 140 million views.

“All accountants have experienced this, where our clients start coming to us with ideas from social media that are wrong,” DiLucci said. “I was just like, ‘I should say how I feel.’”

A typical DiLucci video starts with a viral clip of something she deems bad tax advice. Halfway through, she’ll deliver her take-down.

“She’s dead wrong,” DiLucci said in response to a woman who told viewers that making more money would decrease their take-home pay.

Other online accountants also have adopted this format, like Nick Krop, a Maryland CPA with 100,000 followers on TikTok.

“We’re bait-and-switching them with good information,” Krop said.

DiLucci posts about one YouTube video per day. She said maintaining the consistent stream alongside her Dallas CPA firm means working evenings and weekends.

Karlton Dennis, a tax strategist and sometime target of DiLucci’s videos—including the one cited at the beginning of this article—rejected the idea that his advice is inaccurate or in some way a scam.

“Tax law isn’t black and white,” he said in written answers to questions. “It always depends on the facts and your specific situation. When I mentioned haircuts, I was talking about people whose appearance is literally part of how they make money, like on-camera personalities, actors, or influencers.”

“I use examples that grab attention so people actually listen,” Dennis said. “That approach isn’t for everyone.”

Both DiLucci and Krop said some of their in-person clients have come to them from social media. DiLucci said she makes “very little” in profit from YouTube.

Krop said he began his TikTok account to raise awareness for his new CPA business, not as a crusade against bad tax advice. The misinformation reactions, he said, are simply what get clicks.

“You play the algorithm as it likes,” Krop said. “You play social media as it works best.”

The Government’s Moves

Last summer, Werfel convened a task force at the IRS to fight online tax misinformation, even trying to become a sort of influencer himself. Or, at least, tried to make his cat, Emmett, one.

Throughout the summer, the IRS Instagram posted about 20 pictures of the cat on top of neon backgrounds. There was Emmett, rolling in string or swatting at a fish tank, under a link to the IRS’s webpage about tax scams.

If there was good information out there, Werfel reasoned, people would find that, too. “As you stumble upon bad tax advice, maybe you will stumble upon good tax advice,” he said.

But social media doesn’t work that way, Thomas said. Algorithms shuffle viewers toward advice they’re already likely to agree with.

“Just putting information on a website and saying, ‘This is what we’ve put out and it’s the correct thing,’ it’s not going to combat this,” said Nina Olson, who spent 18 years as the National Taxpayer Advocate. “There has to be engagement.”

The IRS’s social media accounts can be colorful, but the agency can’t do what DiLucci does, Werfel said. It would be inappropriate for the government to use foul language, he said. Or advise viewers on tax strategies. Or trash specific people spreading misinformation, no matter how entertaining.

“Influencers, rightfully, have more degrees of freedom to entertain as part of their message,” Werfel said.