The International Revenue Service (IRS) is alerting taxpayers and tax professionals of an emerging phishing scheme containing fraudulent emails with fake tax bills related to coverage under the Affordable Care Act. The emails have reportedly surfaced all over the country, which request additional information and payment requests due to underreported income. The attached forms requesting information are called CP2000 notices, and are sent when income reported by an employer does not match individual tax return reports.
The IRS is warning not to click or open the attachments. This latest phishing scam comes in light of several recent attempts to access financial and personal identifiable information (PII) through IRS-related scams. “This just shows how tenacious these crooks are,” said Luis Garcia, a spokesman for the IRS in Detroit. “They keep adapting and morphing to find new ways to trick you out of your money.” Not only are the cybercriminals seeking confidential PII, they are also demanding that taxpayers send a check made out to “IRS,” which one should never do. The IRS is asking taxpayers to forward any “phishy” emails to Phishing@irs.gov and immediately delete the email.