I don't think that there is anything scarier for a taxpayer than a letter, call or email from the IRS. Knowing this, crooks use the fear of the IRS to illegally get personal information or cash. As a reminder...
Be aware of e-mail scams that fraudulently use the IRS name or Logo as a lure. The goal of the scam is to trick people into revealing personal and financial information, such as Social Security, bank account or credit card numbers, which the scammers can use to commit identity theft and steal your money.
The IRS does not send unsolicited e-mails about a person’s tax account or ask for detailed personal and financial information. Additionally, the IRS never asks people for their PIN numbers, passwords or similar secret access information for their credit card, bank or other financial accounts.
In addition, Snopes had the following article about criminals phishing for information.
http://www.snopes.com/fraud/phishing/irsrefund.asp
