IRS and the EFTPS System Email Scams

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 get them to disclose personal information.

This is the first phishing scheme to target the EFTPS, a system 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 website. The e-mail claims that someone has enrolled the taxpayer's credit card in EFTPS and has tried to pay taxes with it. It also says that there has been fraudulent activity involving the taxpayer's bank account.

When a recipient clicks on the given link they are taken to a phony site and asked to enter personal information in order to recover their money.

Please remember that the Internal Revenue Service does not ever ask people for their personal identification numbers, passwords, or other access information associated with their credit cards, bank, or other financial accounts.