Avoid becoming a victim of Tax Scams
Recently the IRS sent out another warning about falling
victim to tax scams. The most recent one dated July 19th warns about
scams using the Treasury Department’s Electronic Federal Tax Payment System
(EFTPS). The IRS explains “The new e-mail scam, fraught with grammatical errors
and typos, looks like a page from IRS.gov and claims to be from the “IRS
Antifraud Comission” (sic), a fictitious group. The e-mail claims someone
has enrolled the taxpayer’s credit card in EFTPS and has tried to pay taxes
with it. The e-mail also says there have been fraud attempts involving the
taxpayer’s bank account. The e-mail claims money was lost and “remaining
founds” (sic) are blocked. Recipients are asked to click on a link that
will help them recover their funds, but the subsequent site asks for personal
information that the thieves could use to steal the taxpayer’s identity.”
Remember that the IRS does not send out unsolicited e-mails
asking for personal information. The IRS never asks taxpayers for PIN numbers,
passwords, or similar secret access information for their credit card, bank or
other financial accounts.
A scam that one of our clients was recently exposed to tells
recipients that they are due a federal tax refund, and directs them to a Web
site that appears to be a genuine IRS site. The bogus sites contain forms or
interactive Web pages similar to IRS forms or Web pages but which have been
modified to request detailed personal and financial information from the e-mail
recipients. Tricking consumers into disclosing their personal and financial
information is fraudulent activity that can result in identity theft.
The IRS also has established an electronic
mailbox for taxpayers to send information about suspicious e-mails they receive
which claim to come from the IRS. Taxpayers should send the information to: phishing@irs.gov.