The warning comes as a large number of tax scams have already hit a wide variety of companies, schools and organizations in 2017. For example, the malicious actor can pose as a customer calling his or her tax preparer asking that their refund not be deposited in the account indicated, but to either a different account or even a prepaid debit card.
The IRS also suggests that tax professionals change and strengthen their own email passwords to better protect their email accounts used to exchange sensitive data with clients.
In other situations, the tax payer receives an email purportedly from their tax software service provider asking them to update their online profile. These can either be attempts to download malware through a malicious attachment or to obtain personal information.
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