IRS _ How To Spot Client Data Theft

The Internal Revenue Service and its Security Summit partners  urged tax professionals to learn the tell-tale signs that their office may have experienced a data theft that resulted in fraudulent tax returns being filed in their clients’ names.

The IRS, state tax agencies and the private-sector tax industry, working together as the Security Summit, warned practitioners that global criminal syndicates remain active, and they are well financed, high skilled and tax savvy in their attempts to gain sensitive tax data.

The reminder came as the IRS and the Summit partners encouraged tax professionals to take time this summer to review their data security protection. To help the tax community, the Summit partners offered a new “Taxes-Security-Together” Checklist as a starting point.

“Learning the signs of identity theft is critical for anyone handling taxpayer data,” said IRS Commissioner Chuck Rettig. “It can be as subtle as an unusually slow computer system or as obvious as multiple clients unexpectedly receiving the same IRS notice. Paying attention to these details is critical, and fast action alerting the IRS and calling in a security expert can help protect taxpayers and your business.”

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