Properly Safeguard Your Private Information

Just a quick reminder to always safeguard your private information.  Identity thieves love tax season and tax related identity theft cases is a growing problem.

The IRS recently reported identity theft affected 1.2 million taxpayers in the calendar year 2012 and an additional 1.6 million were affected through June 29, 2013, an increase of approximately 33%.  In most cases the IRS was able to determine the proper owner of the Social Security Number, however, taxpayers will face delays as it takes the IRS an average of 312 days to resolve tax related identity theft issues, which becomes an even larger issue for the taxpayer if a refund is due!

Some simple ways to protect yourself include avoiding shared or public computers, avoid sending anything with sensitive information via unsecure email and beating the identity thieves to the filing punch by filing as early as possible.

Thanks to David Enquist in our Moses Lake office for working up this post.

Paul Neiffer, CPA