IRS announces new security measures to protect taxpayers from identity theft, tax refund fraud
Monday, December 14th, 2015 @ 8:13PM
IRS announces new security measures to protect taxpayers from identity theft, tax refund fraud
20 elements identified that tax filers can share to authenticate, detect identity
By Judy Reich
Posted: 4:46 PM, November 19, 2015 Updated: 4:46 PM, November 19, 2015
PEMBROKE PARK, Fla. – The holiday season is coming and so is the start of tax season. More than 250 million households file tax returns, and 90 percent of those returns are filed on a computer. That means identity theft is a real threat to everyone. The IRS announced new identity theft protections taxpayers will be using filing tax returns in 2016.
In a news conference Thursday, IRS Commissioner John Koskinen, along with state tax administrators and leaders in the tax preparation field announced a new effort: “Taxes-Security-Together” expanding and strengthening protections against identity theft and tax refund fraud for the upcoming tax filing season. The enhanced security measures came out of a Security Summit held earlier this year.
“Refund fraud caused by identity theft has recently become a more serious and complicated threat,” Koskinen said. “Increasingly, these crimes are being perpetrated by sophisticated, organized syndicates. They’ve been able to gather almost unimaginable amounts of personal data from sources outside the IRS. They use this data to file fraudulent federal and state tax income returns, and claim huge refund.”
Posted by cfegov
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