Internal Revenue Service Suspicious Emails and Identity Theft InformationThe Internal Revenue Service (IRS) frequently issues alerts warning taxpayers of new e-mail scams that attempt to masquerade as official communications from the IRS. Oftentimes these scams use the IRS name, logo or Web site in an attempt to convince taxpayers that the email is genuine.
On September 28, 2009 The US Computer Emergency Readiness team (US-CERT) issued an alert warning of a spam attack in which the messages are spoofed to appear to come from the IRS regarding underreported income. The messages encourage recipients to open an attachment or click on a link to view their tax statement, but the attachment contains malware and the link leads to a malicious website. People who receive these emails should delete them immediately without opening the attachment or navigating to the website indicated in the email.
The IRS reminds taxpayers that the IRS does not send out unsolicited e-mails or ask for detailed personal and financial information via e-mail. Additionally, the IRS never asks people for the PIN numbers, passwords or similar secret access information for their credit card, bank or other financial accounts. Taxpayers who receive an unsolicited e-mail claiming to be from the IRS should never click on any links in the message, open any attachments, or provide any personal or financial information to the sender.
Those who have received a questionable telephone calls or e-mails that claim to come from the IRS may use the phishing@irs.gov mailbox to notify the IRS of the scam. Additional information from the IRS on suspicious emails and identity theft can be found here: http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=155682,00.html