Unfortunately there are always scammers and spammers who are looking to trick people into giving away sensitive information, and one way they do this is by sending out false ‘phishing’ emails pretending to be urgent IRS notices. The IRS does not send email requests to taxpayers, so you should disregard any IRS e-mail received, and call the government office directly instead.

Identity thieves send out emails purporting to be from the Internal Revenue Service and they do so in an attempt to obtain personal and tax information from the recipients to commit identity theft and credit card fraud.

A new online phishing scheme has recently surfaced claiming to be from the IRS announcing “important information about your tax return,” with message content such as “we are unable to process your tax return.” The message continues “Our records indicate that the person identified as the primary taxpayer or spouse on the tax return did not provide all the required documents shown on the tax form. Our records are based on information received from the Social Security Administration. Based on this information, the tax account for the individual has been locked.”

This fake IRS email is filled with spelling and grammatical errors, and is not a lucid and polished document that any professional organization would send.

The fake email claims that to get any expected tax refund, the recipient needs to reply to the message with all their personal financial and tax records.

Recent tax phishing efforts have referred to a real IRS Notice.

The IRS does indeed have a real tax notice that it sends to filers when they were unable to process your tax return or they need to have more taxpayer information. These IRS letters and notifications are clearly explained on the link above, and will only follow the protocol setup by the Internal Revenue Service. If you receive any notice from the IRS you should contact your tax preparer immediately to stay ahead of the IRS and fend off any potential problems before they become large expensive tax issues.

The biggest difference is that the real IRS will notify you via the U.S. Postal Service through regular mail. Don’t fall for any email communication that’s allegedly from the IRS, no matter how realistic it might seem as it is always a scam.

If you are awaiting a tax refund, examine your tax money’s status on the IRS’s Where’s My Refund tracking tool.

If you receive scam emails claiming to be from the IRS, ignore them and then forward the spam email to the IRS at phishing@irs.gov.

Until next time,

Jeff Fouts, Tax Attorney

Here’s a bio of sorts. I’m happily married with two kids. I’m a real small town tax lawyer, (Ellijay, pop. 1,584) not some fictional marketing character. I’ve represented tax clients against the IRS in all 50 states, and in 21 foreign countries. I have 18 years experience, thousands of satisfied clients, about 8 critics at last count, and an A+ BBB Rating.

I’m a member in good standing of the bar and have active memberships in courts from Georgia to Washington D.C., including the U.S. Supreme Court. My competitors covet my website ranking but my clients covet my sound legal counsel. I deal directly with my clients and have a tireless staff of tax specialists.

You can put off your tax problem, or put us to work for you.