The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is warning about a new “tax transcript” scam. In the scam, taxpayers are tricked into opening emails that look like they are from the IRS—but they potentially carry malware. Here’s what you need to know.
In the past few weeks, taxpayers have received emails pretending to be from “IRS Online.” The scam email carries an attachment labeled “Tax Account Transcript” or something similar, and the subject line uses some variation of the phrase “tax transcript.”
Tax transcripts, which are summaries of your tax records and history, are available online, and taxpayers do need access to an email account in order to register with the IRS. However, the IRS reminds taxpayers it does not send unsolicited emails to the public and the agency would not email a sensitive document such as a tax transcript.