Spam I Am - Your Tax Return

Like everyone else who does email, I receive spam. Some of it is offensive. Some of it is annoying. And some of it is funny, though I don't think that is the intent. I've decided to share some of it with you periodically in a feature I call, Spam I Am.

Notice: CP01H
Tax year: 2011
Notice date: Sun, 9 Oct 2011 19:00:18 +0100
Page 1 of 1

Important information about your tax return
We are unable to process your tax return

We received your tax return. However, we are unable to process the return as filed.

Our records indicate that the person identified as the primary taxpayer or spouse on the tax return was deceased prior to the tax year shown on the tax form. Our records are based on information received from the Social Security Administration.

Based on this information, the tax account for this individual has been locked.

What you need to do

Visit review page on irs.gov [It's a bogus link, of course]
Keep this notice for your records.

For starters, I've NEVER been contacted by the IRS over the internet, even though I have supplied them with my email address. Second, the IRS would never utilize a nondescript "you" to identify the tax return in question. They would use a person's name and their social security or tax id number. Third, while government forms aren't known for utilizing the best English phraseology, my experience has been that their sentence structure tends to be too long and unwieldy, not short and choppy.

Yet, for these obvious flaws, this kind of an email MIGHT pull in a bunch of dupes except for one glaring problem: the timing! Most people file their tax return from February to April and receive their tax refund no later than June. While it is true that some folks file extensions, the vast majority of such people OWE tax and are trying to put off paying as long as possible.

So, from the strict standpoint of a spammer, this is a good strategy applied at the wrong time of year.