Emails pretending to be from the IRS are being sent out over the internet, reports the Pittsburgh Tribune.

However, the emails are in fact phishing scams trying to lure their recipients into divulging their personal financial details.

The paper gave this example of one of the emails: "After the last annual calculations of your fiscal activity, we have determined that you are eligible to receive a tax refund of $109.30."

However, according to Dave Stewart, a spokesman for the IRS in Philadelphia, the service never sends out emails to citizens.

Of phishers, he said: "They cast the net far and wide, and they only need a few people to fall for the scam.

"It's amazing how prevalent the problem is and it's not going to go away any time soon."

The IRS has told those that receive phishing emails to forward them to phishing@irs.gov.

Doing so is a "huge help" tracking down those responsible for the scams and prosecuting them, Mr Stewart said.

Meanwhile, the security firm RSA has said that there is to be a rise in the number of phishing scams which use fake web pages, known as man in the middle scams.