There’s another side to identity theft you may not have considered and it concerns your taxes. Asking a friend to file your taxes for you could likely lead to the end of a friendship. However, if a scammer obtains even a bit of your personal information, he’ll happily file a tax form for you—and that could land you in hot water.
Each year, the government pays out billions of dollars on fraudulent tax returns. Much of that money goes to criminals who might be called “serial tax filers.” In other words, they file multiple tax returns claiming refunds using information obtained from victims who don’t realize their identities have been compromised.
Recently, Intuit, the makers of TurboTax came under fire for their security procedures. The company has made changes to tighten up their security, but the basic question of how I can stop someone else from filing a return using my information remains. The obvious answer is to protect our personal information so it can only be used legitimately. There are no easy solutions, but here are 5 tips to help meet this goal.
- Never click links in unsolicited emails.
- Never trust unsolicited telephone callers. This includes anyone claiming to be an IRS agent, police officer, or other government official who asks questions about your identity.
- Shred all documents with personal information before getting rid of them
- When making payments online, always use a third-party payment service such as PayPal.
- Keep the virus and malware checker on your computer up-to-date
