IR-2006-49, March 27, 2006
WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service
announced today that it 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.
The IRS’s new mail box allows taxpayers
to send copies of possibly fraudulent e-mails involving misuse
of the IRS name and logo to the IRS for investigation. Instructions
on how to properly submit one of these communications to the IRS
may be found on this Web site. Enter the term phishing in the
search box in the upper right hand corner. Then open the article
titled “How to Protect Yourself from Suspicious E-Mails”
and scroll through it until you find the instructions. Following
these instructions helps ensure that the bogus e-mails relayed
by taxpayers retain critical elements found in the original e-mail.
The IRS can use the information, URLs and links in the bogus e-mails
to trace the hosting Web sites and alert authorities to help shut
down these fraudulent sites.
However, due to the volume the new mailbox is
expected to receive, the IRS will not be able to acknowledge receipt
or reply to taxpayers who submit their bogus e-mails. The phishing@irs.gov
mailbox is only for suspicious e-mails and not for general taxpayer
contact or inquiries.
The IRS reminded taxpayers to be on the lookout
for scam e-mails aimed at tricking the recipients into disclosing
personal and financial information that could be used to steal
the recipients’ identity and financial assets.
“The IRS does not send out unsolicited e-mails
asking for personal information,” said IRS Commissioner Mark
W. Everson. “Don’t be taken in by these criminals.”
The IRS has seen a recent increase in these scams,
many of which originate outside the United States. To date, investigations
by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration have
identified sites hosting more than two dozen IRS-related phishing
scams. These scam Web sites have been located in at least 20 different
countries, including Argentina, Aruba, Australia, Austria, Canada,
Chile, China, England, Germany, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Korea,
Malaysia, Mexico, Poland, Singapore and Slovakia, as well as the
United States.
The current scams claim to come from the IRS,
tell recipients that they are due a federal tax refund, and direct
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.
In addition, e-mail addresses ending with “.edu” —
involving users in the education community — currently seem
to be heavily targeted.
The IRS does not send out unsolicited e-mails
or ask for detailed personal information. Additionally, the IRS
never asks people for the PIN numbers, passwords or similar secret
access information for their credit card, bank or other financial
accounts.
Tricking consumers into disclosing their personal
and financial information, such as secret access data or credit
card or bank account numbers, is identity theft. Such schemes
perpetrated through the Internet are called “phishing”
for information.
The information fraudulently obtained is then
used to steal the taxpayer’s identity and financial assets.
Typically, identity thieves use someone’s personal data to
empty the victim’s financial accounts, run up charges on
the victim’s existing credit cards, apply for new loans,
credit cards, services or benefits in the victim’s name and
even file fraudulent tax returns.
When the IRS learns of new schemes involving
use of the IRS name or logo, it issues consumer alerts warning
taxpayers about the schemes.
For information on preventing or handling the
aftermath of identity theft, visit the Federal Trade Commission’s
consumer and OnGuardOnLine Web sites. Click on Topics to find
the identity theft and phishing areas on OnGuardOnLine.
For schemes other than phishing, please report
the fraudulent misuse of the IRS name, logo, forms or other IRS
property by calling the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration’s
toll-free hotline at 1-800-366-4484.
