Is that email or text from the IRS real?
Short answer
Almost certainly not. The IRS doesn't start contact by email, text or social media to ask for information or payment; it sends letters. Refund or back-tax messages that arrive digitally are scams, as are fake tax-software sign-in emails. Type irs.gov yourself.
Three common forms
- IRS impersonation. A refund waiting, back taxes owed, or a problem with your return, by email, text or DM.
- Fake tax-software notices. Emails styled as TurboTax, H&R Block or your accountant asking you to sign in. The link goes to a copy of the login.
- W-2 requests. Someone posing as an executive asks HR or payroll for employees' W-2 or 1099 forms, enough to file fraudulent returns for everyone on the list.
Why the stakes are high
A tax session gathers your SSN, income, employer, address and refund bank account in one place, which is everything needed to file in your name and take the refund first.
What to do
- File early. It's the simplest way to beat someone filing first in your name.
- Type
irs.govor your tax provider's address, or use a bookmark. - HR and payroll: confirm any request for tax forms by voice with the person asking.
- Read "your refund is ready, click here" as a reason to slow down.
Haven's role
Haven checks whether the page in front of you really is the site it claims to be, by analyzing the page itself rather than only matching it against a list of known-bad sites.
How Haven handles this
- Haven checks whether the page in front of you really is the site it claims to be, by analyzing the page itself rather than only matching it against a list of known-bad sites. That is how it can flag a convincing fake that is too new to be on any blocklist. It flags; it cannot undo a payment or a login you have already handed over. Haven is not an email or SMS gateway, so it does not stop the message that leads to the page, and it complements phishing-resistant MFA rather than replacing it.Verified by engineering October 28, 2026