Taxpayer Beware: Email Scams

The Internal Revenue Service has been plagued with phishing schemes in recent years.  Taxpayers beware that the IRS will never contact you via email, so anything that you receive via email that says it is from the IRS is actually not.

Phishing, as it is called, is the act of sending an e-mail to a user falsely claiming to be an established legitimate enterprise in an attempt to scam the user into surrendering private information that will be used for identity theft.

The most recent scam that has been going around is an email that looks like it came from the Electronic Federal Tax Payment System (EFTPS).

The e-mail states that tax payments made by the e-mail recipient through EFTPS have been rejected. The e-mail then directs recipients to a bogus website containing malicious software (malware) that infects the intended victim’s computer.

If you receive anything that appears to be from the IRS or EFTPS do not click on any links, download any attachments or reply to the sender.  Report the email or website to the IRS immediately by contacting phishing@irs.gov.

Source:  Internal Revenue Service