Taxing scam

The global scamster industry has travelled from the ailing economies of Africa and finally washed up on the shores of the US. Earlier scams originated from politically-troubled states like Nigeria or Congo and requested the recipient to "park" millions of dollars in his account till things settled down in return for a generous fee. The latest one is far more ingenious. It appears in the form of an "official" letter from the Internal Revenue Service of the US Department of Treasury to anyone who may have concluded some transactions overseas. "Our records indicate that you are a Non-resident," the letter says, "as a result you are exempted from United States of America Tax reporting and withholdings on interest paid to you on your account and other financial benefits. To protect your exemption from tax on your account and other financial benefits, you need to recertify your exemption status and enable us confirm your records with us." A detailed "certificate" that the recipient must fill in is attached. It demands, among other things, such personal details as bank account numbers and passport numbers. The form also requires a copy of the passport or account statement for "proper identification". The letter comes from a user ID irs-us@xixia.net. Try and log in and you get this prompt: "You are about to log in to the site "xixia.net" with the username "irs-us", but the website does not require authentication. This may be an attempt to trick you."