If tax season is here, can IRS e-mail scams be far behind? Here's a tempting one making the rounds: An e-mail that looks like it's from the IRS tells you the agency has "determined that you are eligible to receive a tax refund of 6.35." All it takes to get that cash is a simple click on a link to "access the form for your tax refund." If you get one of these, don't start planning that vacation yet, and definitely do not click on the link or fill out the form. The IRS doesn't send unsolicited e-mails about tax refunds or any other matter. What you've actually received is not an opportunity to claim hundreds of unexpected dollars. It's a phishing scam designed to load malicious software onto your system and collect personal information for use in identity theft schemes. This and other scams that use refunds from the IRS as bait are more prevalent than ever. Meanwhile, even newer scams are showing up surrounding the recent Federal tax rebate, according to Paula Greve, director of Web security research for Secure Computing. In fact, Greve notes, there has been a 3,000 percent year-over-year increase in phishing attacks and malicious Web sites targeting the IRS, with more such attacks in January 2008 alone than in the first six months of 2007 combined. Close to 600 IP addresses sending e-mail purporting to be from the IRS have already been tracked, and Greve expects that number to increase.