Have you ever received an e-mail that promises you an additional tax refund? In one day, I received six of them, each with a higher amount than the last. Unsuspecting people may fall for such a gimmick and unwittingly start providing the sender with personal information with the hope that free money will come their way.

Senders of these types of e-mail have found the perfect means to intimidate taxpayers into filling out legitimate-looking, but phony, IRS forms. There are several variations of the e-mail. The newest version will be related to the 2008 "Stimulus rebate."  Others will say you have a refund coming to you and all you need to do is fill out a form online and the IRS will send it to you. Another scam involves a "Tax Avoidance Investigation" e-mail claiming to come from the IRS' "Fraud Department" in which you are asked to complete an "investigation form," for which there is a link contained in the e-mail. It is believed that clicking on the link may activate a Trojan horse that has the potential to take over your computer hard drive and allow someone to have remote access to your computer.

Common sense tells you to always exercise caution when you receive unsolicited e-mails or e-mails from senders you don't know. Most importantly, the IRS never sends out unsolicited e-mails and it never e-mails requests for personal and financial information including PIN numbers, passwords, or similar secret access information for their credit card, bank, or other financial accounts.

If you do receive a questionable e-mail claiming to be from the IRS, do not open any attachments or click on any links contained in the e-mail. The IRS encourages you to forward those e-mails to phishing@irs.gov. "Phishing" is the sending of an e-mail that claims to be from some well-known organization to trick the recipient into revealing information for use in identity theft.

Since the IRS established the e-mail fraud mailbox last year, it has received more than 17,700 e-mails from taxpayers reporting more than 240 separate phishing incidents. The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) has currently identified host sites in at least 27 different countries, as well as within the United States.

To protect yourself from having your identity stolen, guard your personal information, and always verify the validity of any forms or correspondence requesting you to divulge personal information. If you have any question at all, look up the number and call the organization that sent the correspondence BEFORE supplying any information. Do not rely on phone numbers or e-mail addresses provided with correspondence. Be suspicious of any unsolicited correspondence that requests the following types of information:

- Date of birth
- Social security number
- Passport number
- Bank name
- Credit card information
- Account number, type, and date opened
- E-mail address
- Occupation
- Daytime phone number
- Frequency of U.S. visits
- Information about spouses, children, and parents

Any website that collects personal information should contain "https" in the URL address at the top (the "s" indicates that it is a secure site). It should also have a padlock in your browser's status bar. Double-click on the padlock to see the website's security certificate. Certificates show the owner of the website in the "Issued to" line. An @ sign, "under construction," or "cannot be located" in this line is reason for suspicion. The certificate should also show dates with a range of only a few years in the "Valid from" line (such as 7/29/05 - 7/29/07). If there is ANY question in your mind about any website, do not use the link. Instead, log onto the website directly (such as www.irs.gov), and find phone numbers to call. Be safe, not sorry.

This article is brought to you by Peter Tuttle, CPA.  You may contact me by sending an e-mail via the link to the right of my active rain blog page.  Please visit my website at http://www.petertuttlecpa.com/

"I help individuals, families, small-businesses & non-profits with their income tax & insurance needs."

IRS Circ 230 disclosure: To ensure compliance w/ rqmts imposed
by US Treasury Regs, we inform you that any tax advice contained
in this communication (including any attachments) was not intended or
written to be used, and cannot be used, for the purpose of (i) avoiding
penalties under the IR Code or (ii) promoting, marketing or
recommending to another party any transaction or matter addressed herein.