IRS warns of new e-mail scam

[KarlMarx]

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is warning taxpayers of an e-mail scam that uses the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Electronic Federal Tax Payment System (EFTPS) to lure them into disclosing personal information. The IRS said the e-mail scam is the first to target the EFTPS, which allows businesses and individuals to pay their federal taxes online or via telephone. The fake e-mail, which contains numerous grammatical and typographical errors, looks like a page from the IRS Web site and claims to be from the "IRS Antifraud Comission" (sic), a fictitious group. The IRS said it has seen a recent increase in such scams. Since November, 104 different scams have been identified -- 22 of them in June alone -- the most since 40 were identified in March, at the height of the tax filing season. More than 8,000 bogus e-mails have been forwarded to the IRS to date -- including nearly 1,300 that were forwarded last month, the IRS said. (Computerworld www.computerworld.com 07/24/06)

forewarned is forearmed, just got this notice at work, thought you all would like to know!