With tax season upon us, ID related tax fraud is important to talk about.
What does tax season and identity theft have in common you ask?
Protecting yourself from identity theft is always smart, however, it’s important that you don’t get too caught up in it all. Many panicked taxpayers, after watching news stories on the dangers of ID related tax fraud, are feeling confused. Unfortunately, some of the advice isn’t very practical. Here are some things you need to know about identity theft and tax returns:
Not all data breaches hacks result in ID related tax fraud. There are a number of scams out there, and certain parts of your personal information could have been compromised. There’s not a week that goes by that news of some kind of breach occurred, from Equifax to Yahoo to Target. But it is important to understand that not every data breach results in ID theft, and not every identity theft is related to tax ID theft.
The IRS advises taxpayers who have been a victim to keep in touch with the company that lost your data. Also, you need to find out what type of personal information was possibly breached. Many think that filing early prevents identity theft. It may deter tax ID theft because of filing early, however, your data can be compromised at any time.
It’s important to be careful this tax season, but don’t let panic set in and scare you. Just take a few simple steps to protect your financial information, and watch for announcements and updates from the IRS.
Tax season and identity theft have more in common than you think.
Although protecting yourself will not deter ID theft completely, hiring a leader in ID theft protection, LifeLock, will help in the unfortunate case you become a victim. With LLPromoCodes.com we have the most current codes available for LifeLock protection. It is never to late to protect yourself from ID theft.
