The Internal Revenue Service is warning taxpayers not to respond to a mass email phishing scam, which appears to target immigrants.
The e-mails purporting to come from "noreply@irs.gov" include attached fake forms that ask unwitting taxpayers to fax in personal bank account numbers.
The e-mail may have a cover letter from a person identifying herself as IRS public relations employee Laura Stevens, who instructs recipients to fill out the attached W-4100B2 form.
The attached form W-4100B2 does not exist but is similar to the IRS' W8-BEN form. The form requests such information as the person's birth date, Social Security number, mailing address, bank account number and signature.
The genuine form is sent to financial institutions, not the IRS, by nonresident aliens with income subject to U.S. income tax. The financial institutions act as a nonresident alien's withholding agen
Remember, the IRS does not send unsolicited e-mails about taxes.
• Any unsolicited e-mails claiming to be from the IRS are scams. Don't access any links or attachments.
• If you filed a 2007 federal tax return with the IRS, you don't need to do anything else to get a stimulus payment. The IRS will take care of the rest.
• Filing a tax return is the only way to get a refund. There is no separate application form
How to report phishing, e-mail scams and bogus IRS Web sites;
If you receive an e-mail or find a Web site you think is pretending to be the IRS,
* Forward the e-mail or Web site URL to the IRS at phishing@irs.gov
* You can forward the email as received or if possible, provide the header info in email that has additional info.
* After you forward the e-mail or header information delete the message
For more information about tax scams, visit the IRS Web site
The e-mails purporting to come from "noreply@irs.gov" include attached fake forms that ask unwitting taxpayers to fax in personal bank account numbers.
The e-mail may have a cover letter from a person identifying herself as IRS public relations employee Laura Stevens, who instructs recipients to fill out the attached W-4100B2 form.
The attached form W-4100B2 does not exist but is similar to the IRS' W8-BEN form. The form requests such information as the person's birth date, Social Security number, mailing address, bank account number and signature.
The genuine form is sent to financial institutions, not the IRS, by nonresident aliens with income subject to U.S. income tax. The financial institutions act as a nonresident alien's withholding agen
Remember, the IRS does not send unsolicited e-mails about taxes.
• Any unsolicited e-mails claiming to be from the IRS are scams. Don't access any links or attachments.
• If you filed a 2007 federal tax return with the IRS, you don't need to do anything else to get a stimulus payment. The IRS will take care of the rest.
• Filing a tax return is the only way to get a refund. There is no separate application form
How to report phishing, e-mail scams and bogus IRS Web sites;
If you receive an e-mail or find a Web site you think is pretending to be the IRS,
* Forward the e-mail or Web site URL to the IRS at phishing@irs.gov
* You can forward the email as received or if possible, provide the header info in email that has additional info.
* After you forward the e-mail or header information delete the message
For more information about tax scams, visit the IRS Web site
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Thank goodness for Denise. Just when we think we know it all, she taps us on the shoulder and says...Hey, look at this. We often get so busy we forget to think twice when mail or email comes to us with all important looking, but bogus form #'s on the top. Recently, a pretty astute friend of mine blew me away when he told me he had fallen prey to exactly the type of scams Denise is alerting us to.