U.S. IRS Warns of Phony E-mails Claiming to be from the IRS

November 23, 2007

Following a recent increase in scam emails, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service IRS reminds individuals in Germany to be on the lookout for bogus emails claiming to be from the U.S. tax agency.

The IRS does not send out unsolicited e-mails. The IRS never asks people for the PIN numbers, passwords or similar secret access information for their credit card, bank or other financial accounts.

Also, U.S. taxpayers do not have to complete a special form or provide detailed financial information to obtain a refund.  Refunds are based on information contained on the federal income tax return filed by the taxpayer.

The only genuine Internal Revenue Service IRS web-site is www.irs.gov.

Various versions of scam:

• The bogus e-mail tells the recipient that he or she is eligible to receive a U.S. tax refund for a given amount of money, and sends the recipient to a Web site to complete a form to “submit the tax refund request.”  
  
  The site, a copy of the IRS Web site, displayed an interactive page similar to a genuine IRSone; however, it had been modified to ask for personal financial information that the genuineIRS interactive page does not require.  The information fraudulently obtained by the scammers is used to steal the person’s identity and then his or her financial assets. 
• Another scheme directs non-U.S. citizens to send money for tax form processing and a late fee.  The email directs the recipient to send the money to an Escrow Agent through a bank wire transfer.  The email contains bank routing information for the Escrow Agent.  
  Hundreds of thousands of messages are sent out to potential victims using the same techniques used by “spammers.” 

What you can do:

You can help shut down these schemes and prevent others from being victimized.  If you receive a suspicious e-mail that claims to come from the IRS, you can relay that email to an IRS mailbox,phishing@irs.gov. 

Refer to http://www.irs.gov/individuals/article/0,,id=155344,00.html  for instructions for sending the bogus email to the above e-mail box so that it retains critical elements found in the original e-mail.  The IRS can use the information, URLs and links in the suspicious e-mails you send to trace the hosting Web site and alert authorities to help shut down the fraudulent sites.  Note that due to the expected volume, the IRS will not be able to acknowledge receipt of your email.

The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) has found numerous separate Web sites in at least 20 different countries hosting variations on this theme.

To protect against becoming a victim of these scams, take the following steps:

• Be skeptical of communications you receive from sources you are not expecting.  Verify the authenticity of phone calls, standard mail, faxes or e-mails of questionable origin before responding.
• Do not reveal secret passwords, PINs or other security-based data to third parties; genuine organizations or institutions do not need your secret data for ordinary business transactions.
• Do not click on links contained in possibly questionable e-mails; instead, go directly to the site already known to be genuine.  For example, the only address for the IRS Web site iswww.irs.gov – any other variations on this will not lead to the legitimate IRS Web site.
• Do not open attachments to e-mails of possibly questionable origin, since they may contain viruses that will infect your computer.
• Shred any paper documents containing private financial information before discarding.