U.S. Congressman Blaine Luetkemeyer 3rd District of Missouri

My office recently received a very troublesome warning from the Internal Revenue Service about an unscrupulous email being sent to thousands of hard-working Americans, including Missourians, which could have a devastating effect on our businesses. I felt it was extremely important to make you aware of the situation.

The IRS’ Identification Theft Unit has discovered a fraudulent email from the IRS Office of Professional Responsibility instructing taxpayers to acquire a new Employer Identification Number, also known as an EIN or Federal Tax Identification Number. These numbers are used to identify a business entity and, like a Social Security Number, are confidential. In the wrong hands, these numbers could be used for all sorts of illegal or unauthorized activity.

The subject line of this fraudulent email contains the text “Acquire new EIN,” while the body of the email instructs people on how to obtain a new EIN.  In some cases, the text in the subject and/or the body of the email may be slightly different.  In either case, these are fraudulent emails.

I want to make it clear that, according to the IRS, they do not initiate taxpayer communications through email. If you receive this fraudulent message, the IRS advises you NOT to reply to the sender, refrain from accessing links in the email or submit any information. If you do receive one of these fraudulent emails, the IRS asks that you forward the message as is to the following address: phishing@irs.gov.

My office already has heard from a handful of people who have received these messages. As your representative in Washington, it is part of my job to make you aware of potential scams like this. I am hopeful this information assists in protecting you from those who want to take advantage of folks in these tough economic times.