Phishing: “a scam typically carried out by unsolicited email and/or websites that pose as legitimate sites and lure unsuspecting victims to provide personal and financial information.” A phishing victim often finds himself burdened with tax problems that are not his own. See IRS website for full detailed information about phishing and everything you need to know about identity theft.

Be on the lookout for the following email subject lines in your inbox:

“Urgent update of tax information is requested”

or

“Tax information required within 30 days.”

It is recommended that you delete these emails immediately because it’s a scam. If you do decide to risk opening the email, the text will look something like this:

Dear Account Holder,

In our continuing effort to guarantee that exact data is being sustained on our systems, as well as to provide you better quality of service; INTUIT INC. has participated in the Internal Revenue Service [IRS] Name and TIN Matching Program.

We have discovered, that your name and/or Taxpayer Identification Number, that is stated on your account does not correspond to the data on file with the Social Security Administration.

In order to check the data on your account, please click here.

Regards,
INTUIT INC.

Corporate Headquarters
2632 Marine Way
Mountain View, CA 94043

Thanks to Kelly Philips Erb for pointing out these scam emails from time to time. If bloggers will repost these scams all over the internet, maybe we can minimize the damage to innocent taxpayers.