Online scam artists can certainly be creative and opportunistic. This year we've got scammers claiming to be from the IRS and playing on two of the most powerful of human emotions, fear and greed. The first is a phishing scheme in which the scammers try to steal key personal information on the pretense of resolving some sort of problem with your taxes. That one's actually been around a while. The second is a phone or e-mail scam taking advantage of the "economic stimulus" checks to be sent out to many of us in early May. You guessed it, the scammers are using the pretense of the payout to wheedle bank account numbers from victims -- "give us your bank account number so we can process your payment," or something similar. Don't buy it.
As with many phishing scams, foreknowledge is forearmament: The IRS doesn't use e-mail to contact people about tax problems. Nor, it says, will it be contacting people by e-mail about the rebate checks. There's more info about the checks, who's going to get them and how much, by the way, at the IRS' Web site.