In addition to those protective steps, taxpayers should be wary of a variety of email scams. Throughout the year, taxpayers should be aware of different types of email phishing scams that identity thieves and scam artists commonly use.

• Phishing/Smishing – Phishing emails or SMS/texts (known as “smishing”) attempt to trick a recipient into clicking a suspicious link, filling out information or downloading a malware file. Often phishing attempts are sent to multiple email addresses at a business or agency, increasing odds that someone will fall for the trick.
• Spear phishing – This is a specific type of phishing scam that bypasses emailing large groups at an organization, instead identifying potential victims and delivering a more realistic email known as a “lure.” These types of scams can be trickier to identify since they don't occur in large numbers. They single out individuals, can be specialized and make the email seem more legitimate. Scammers can pose as a potential client for a tax professional, luring the practitioner into sharing sensitive information.
• Clone phishing – This is a newer type of phishing scam that clones a real email message and resends it to the original recipient pretending to be the original sender. The new message will have either an attachment that contains malware or link that tries to steal information from a recipient.
• Whaling – Whaling attacks are very similar to spear phishing, except these attacks are generally targeted to leaders or other executives with access to large amounts of information at an organization or business. Whaling attacks can target people in payroll offices, human resource personnel and financial offices as well as leadership.