A nationwide scam meant to make people believe they're giving personal information to the IRS was caught before it affected people at Millard Public Schools.

The IRS says the scam has been going on nationwide since November and it is associated with 12 separate scams traced to 11 different countries.

Officials at Millar Public Schools said about 40 people received a fake e-mail telling them the IRS owes them $63.80. Officials said the e-mail got fishy when clicking the provided link led to very personal questions.

"When you look at the e-mail header, you can see it looks official. And you compare it to the IRS Web site -- it looks exactly the same," said Mark Feldhuasen, of Millard Public Schools. "As they read the e-mail and then clicked on the link, (it) was asking for personal and financial information -- specifically asking for social security numbers and for credit card numbers and pin numbers for credit cards."

Millard officials said they traced the e-mail address back to a server in Thailand.

IRS officials say they would never send out unsolicited e-mail and, under no circumstances, request credit card information or other personal information through e-mail.