IRS warns tax professionals to be on guard over identity theft

The Internal Revenue Service has begun an eight week awareness campaign to ensure that tax professionals are protecting themselves and their clients against identity theft.

The summer messaging focuses on the importance of keeping on top of the threats that the IRS warns are daily and evolving with criminals using ever cunning and sophisticated methods to try to obtain sensitive tax and financial information.

Stealing taxpayers’ information enables thieves to file fraudulent tax returns that are harder for officials to detect, while other thieves sell the data online for others to use in fraudulent returns.

“The Security Summit effort between the IRS, states and the nation’s tax industry has worked to protect taxpayers and tax returns from identity thieves, and tax professionals form a key part of these security defenses,” said IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel. “It's critical that everyone in the tax professional community, including smaller practices, stay current on the latest developments to keep their systems safe and protect their clients."

Spring saw around 200 tax professional data incidents with a total of up to 180,000 clients affected but there are things that can be done to bolster defenses and this includes strong protection on computers containing client data. Scammers typically trick or hack their way into these systems and even when tax pros think they have client data stored in a secure platform, such as the cloud, lack of strong authentication can make this information vulnerable.

The IRS and its Security Summit partners urge tax professionals to create a security plan, keep up with emerging scams targeting the industry, and knowing how to identify signs of phishing, spear phishing, and other methods used by scammers.

More information for tax professionals on how to avoid scammers will form the basis of the summer Protect Your Clients; Protect Yourself campaign.