Over recent years, there has been an increasing number of reports of everyday citizens having their private income tax information stolen during the process of simply filing their taxes. Phishing, as it is called, has led to hundreds of known complaints of theft (with probably thousands more going unreported).
To avoid becoming the next victim of the bad guys – who would love to steal your money and identity – from afar, keep this list handy:
1. Be aware of who’s preparing and filing your tax information. Be sure to only deal with reputable services and check online for reports and reviews submitted by people who have used them before. If at all possible, stick with a highly referred service.
2. File your returns early. If you file early in the tax season, the scammers will have less time to beat you to your hard-earned money.
3. Be sure to personally deliver your returns to your local post office. Putting the information in someone else’s hands doesn’t mean they’ll purposefully do something malicious, but what if they forget and leave your returns in their car or somewhere else? It’s best to be safe and do it yourself; this way you’ll protect yourself from scammers and being late to file.
4. If you’re filing online, make sure your connection is secure. There are many programs that will monitor the security of your system. This will ensure that both ends of the transmission are safe.
5. Again, if you’re filing online, make sure that you don’t save your return on your PC. You don’t want to take the chance of being hacked at some point, and having all of that information delivered into the wrong hands.
