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for larger version       IRS Warns Taxpayers Of New E-Mail Scams The Internal Revenue Service recently issued a press release alerting taxpayers to the latest version of an e-mail scam intended to fool people into believing they are under investigation by the agency's Criminal Investigation division. The e-mail claiming to be from the IRS Criminal Investigation Department falsely states that the person is under a criminal probe for submitting a false tax return to the California Franchise Board. The e-mail tries to convince the recipient to click on a link or open an attachment to learn more information about the complaint against them. The link or attachment turns out to be a Trojan Horse that can override the computer's hard drive and allow remote access to the computer. The IRS would like to make it clear that they do not send out unsolicited e-mails or ask for detailed personal and financial information. In addition, the IRS never asks for PIN numbers, passwords, or other secret access information for credit cards, bank accounts, or other financial entities.Other fraudulent e-mail scams include enticing taxpayers by convincing the recipient that the IRS is holding a refund for them, and seeks financial account information. Recipients of any type of questionable e-mails claiming to come from the IRS should not open any attachments or links contained within the e-mail. Instead they should forward the e-mails to phishing@irs.gov. Since the establishment of this mailbox last year, the IRS has received more than 17,700 e-mails from taxpayers reporting more than 240 separate "phishing" incidents. The IRS identifies "phishing" as an e-mail scam intended to trick victims into revealing private personal and financial information over the Internet. For more information regarding this scam you can visit www IRS.gov .
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