I received a call from an individual claiming to be an IRS agent or attorney and askingfor information about me and  my authorisation to send information about my outstanding taxes for collection.

There is a fairly common IRS or "tax scam" being practiced by scammers in both Canada and the USA.
USA tax payers should read this:
http://www.irs.gov/uac/Newsroom/IRS-Reiterate ... -Telephone-Scam

I just got one.  It is a total scam.

They called us too! We live in California and called the police about it! It appears to be a big scam!

This fellow called me too claiming to be an IRS officer and a random audit found miscalculations in my previous tax years. Also claimed that a letter was sent in Jan 2014 and i could be facing criminal charges for failing to respond to it.  But his flat refusal to resend me the so called letter sent by IRS, kept on raising flags during my entire conversation.  I almost fell to this bugger and wasted my time until he told me I could settle outside the court. Fortunately, I didn't provide any personal info to this scammer. I hope somebody puts an end to this fraudster. What is appalling about these scams is they get hold of victims's address , that is the reason how i started believing him. There should be a law preventing these criminals from gaining information for unlawful purposes.