WASHINGTON
— The Internal Revenue Service reminds consumers to avoid identity theft
scams that use the IRS name, logo or Web site in an attempt to convince taxpayers
that the scam is a genuine communication from the IRS. Scammers may use other
federal agency names, such as the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
In
an identity theft scam, a fraudster, often posing as a trusted government, financial
or business institution or official, tries to trick a victim into revealing personal
and financial information, such as credit card numbers and passwords, bank account
numbers and passwords, Social Security numbers and more. Generally, identity thieves
use someone’s personal data to steal his or her 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.
The scams may take place through
e-mail, fax or phone. When they take place via e-mail, they are called “phishing”
scams.
The IRS does not discuss tax account
matters with taxpayers by e-mail.
The IRS
urges consumers to avoid falling for the following recent schemes:
Making
Work Pay Refund
This phishing e-mail,
which claims to come from the IRS, references the president and the Making Work
Pay provision of the 2009 economic recovery law. It says that there is a refundable
credit available to workers, consumers and retirees that can be paid into the
recipient’s bank account if the recipient registers their account information
with the IRS. The e-mail contains links to register the account and to claim the
tax refund.
In reality, most taxpayers receive
their Making Work Pay tax credit, which was designed for wage earners, in their
paychecks as a result of decreased tax withholding, not as a lump sum distribution
from a federal fund. Additionally, consumers and retirees who are not wage earners
are not eligible for this tax credit.
Inherited
Funds / Lottery Winnings / Cash Consignment
In
this phishing scheme, recipients receive an e-mail claiming to come from the U.S.
Department of the Treasury notifying them that they will receive millions of dollars
in recovered funds or lottery winnings or cash consignment if they provide certain
personal information, including phone numbers, via return e-mail. The e-mail may
be just the first step in a multi-step scheme, in which the victim is later contacted
by telephone or further e-mail and instructed to deposit taxes on the funds or
winnings before they can receive any of it. Alternatively, they may be sent a
phony check of the funds or winnings and told to deposit it but pay 10 percent
in taxes or fees. Thinking that the check must have cleared the bank and is genuine,
some people comply. However, the scammers, not the Treasury Department, will get
the taxes or fees.
Form W-8BEN
In
this scam, fraudsters modify a genuine IRS form, the W-8BEN, Certificate of Foreign
Status of Beneficial Owner for United States Tax Withholding, to request detailed
personal and financial information. This could include nationality, passport number,
bank account and PIN numbers, spouse’s name and mother’s maiden name,
or other personal or financial information or security measures for financial
accounts. The scammers may use the genuine form number and name or may make up
a new form number, such as W-4100B2.
They
either e-mail or fax the form or letter. If only a letter, the letter itself contains
the request for the personal and financial information. The letter, which claims
to come from the IRS, states that the recipient will face additional taxes unless
he or she quickly faxes the required information to the number provided by the
scammer.
In reality, taxpayers file the genuine
Form W-8BEN with their financial institutions, not with the IRS. Additionally,
the genuine W-8BEN does not request the taxpayer’s passport number, bank
account number, security or similar information.
Refund
Scam
The bogus e-mail, which claims to
come from the IRS, tells the recipient that he or she is eligible to receive a
tax refund for a given amount. It instructs the recipient to click on a link contained
in the e-mail to access and complete a form for the tax refund. The form requires
the entry of personal and financial information. The refund scam is the most common
one seen by the IRS. Several recent variations on this scam have claimed to come
from the Exempt Organizations area of the IRS. Some others have included the name
and purported signature of a genuine or a made-up IRS executive.
Taxpayers
do not have to complete a special form to obtain a refund. Taxpayer refunds are
based on the tax return they submit to the IRS.
How
to Spot a Scam
Many e-mail scams are fairly
sophisticated and hard to detect. However, there are signs to watch for, such
as an e-mail that:
Requests detailed or an
unusual amount of personal and/or financial information, such as name, SSN, bank
or credit card account numbers or security-related information, such as mother’s
maiden name, either in the e-mail itself or on another site to which a link in
the e-mail sends the recipient.
Dangles bait
to get the recipient to respond to the e-mail, such as mentioning a tax refund
or offering to pay the recipient to participate in an IRS survey.
Threatens
a consequence for not responding to the e-mail, such as additional taxes or blocking
access to the recipient’s funds.
Gets
the Internal Revenue Service or other federal agency names wrong.
Uses
incorrect grammar or odd phrasing (many of the e-mail scams originate overseas
and are written by non-native English speakers).
Uses
a really long address in any link contained in the e-mail message or one that
does not start with the actual IRS Web site address (www.irs.gov). To see the
actual link address, or url, move the mouse over the link included in the text
of the e-mail.
What to Do
The
IRS does not initiate taxpayer contact via unsolicited e-mail or ask for personal
identifying or financial information via e-mail. If you receive a suspicious e-mail
claiming to come from the IRS, take the following steps:
Do
not open any attachments to the e-mail, in case they contain malicious code that
will infect your computer.
Do not click on
any links, for the same reason. Also, be aware that the links often connect to
a phony IRS Web site that appears authentic and then prompts the victim for personal
identifiers, bank or credit card account numbers or PINs. The phony Web sites
appear legitimate because the appearance and much of the content are directly
copied from an actual page on the IRS Web site and then modified by the scammers
for their own purposes.
Contact the IRS at
1-800-829-1040 to determine whether the IRS is trying to contact you.
Forward
the suspicious e-mail or url address to the IRS mailbox phishing@irs.gov,
then delete the e-mail from your inbox.
Genuine
IRS Web site
The only genuine IRS Web
site is IRS.gov.
All IRS.gov
Web page addresses begin with http://www.irs.gov/.
Anyone wishing to access the IRS Web site should initiate contact by typing the
IRS.gov address into their Internet address window, rather than clicking on a
link in an e-mail.
