Consumers warned of new surge in IRS email schemes
The IRS is once again alerting the community about email schemes after seeing about a 400 percent surge in phising and malware incident so far this tax season.
Officials said the emails are designed to trick taxpayers into thinking these are official communications from the IRS or others in the tax industry, including tax software companies. The phishing schemes can ask taxpayers about a wide range of topics. E-mails can seek information related to refunds, filing status, confirming personal information, ordering transcripts and verifying PIN information.
Some of the scams can be seen via text messages and they’re being reported in every section of the country, according to the IRS release.
“This dramatic jump in these scams comes at the busiest time of tax season,” said IRS Commissioner John Koskinen. “Watch out for fraudsters slipping these official-looking emails into inboxes, trying to confuse people at the very time they work on their taxes. We urge people not to click on these emails.”
This tax season the IRS has observed fraudsters more frequently asking for personal tax information, which could be used to help file false tax returns.
IRS officials said when people click on these email links, they are taken to sites designed to imitate an official-looking website, such as IRS.gov. The sites ask for Social Security numbers and other personal information. The sites also may carry malware, which can infect people’s computers and allow criminals to access your files or track your keystrokes to gain information.
There were 1,026 incidents reported in January, up from 254 from a year earlier
The trend continued in February, nearly doubling the reported number of incidents compared to a year ago. In all, 363 incidents were reported from Feb. 1-16, compared to the 201 incidents reported for the entire month of February 2015
This year’s 1,389 incidents have already topped the 2014 yearly total of 1,361, and they are halfway to matching the 2015 total of 2,748
“While more attention has focused on the continuing IRS phone scams, we are deeply worried this increase in email schemes threatens more taxpayers,” Koskinen said. “We continue to work cooperatively with our partners on this issue, and we have taken steps to strengthen our processing systems and fraud filters to watch for scam artists trying to use stolen information to file bogus tax returns.”
As the email scams increase, the IRS is working on this issue through the Security Summit initiative with state revenue departments and the tax industry. Many software companies, tax professionals and state revenue departments have seen variations in the schemes, officials said.
Tax professionals are also reporting phishing scams that are seeking their online credentials to IRS services, for example the IRS Tax Professional PTIN System. Tax professionals are also reporting that many of their clients are seeing the e-mail schemes.
The IRS has partnered with state revenue departments and the tax industry to make sure taxpayers understand the dangers as part of the Taxes. Security. Together campaign.
Check out the Dirty Dozen tax scam list for this year
The bottom line: links may be masked to appear to go to official pages, but they can go to a scam page designed to look like the official page. The IRS urges people not to click on these links but instead send the email to phishing@irs.gov.
Scams
