{"id":4640,"date":"2013-02-28T21:57:00","date_gmt":"2013-02-28T21:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/evssolutions.com\/protect-yourself-from-tax-fraud\/"},"modified":"2013-02-28T21:57:00","modified_gmt":"2013-02-28T21:57:00","slug":"protect-yourself-from-tax-fraud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/evssolutions.com\/insights\/protect-yourself-from-tax-fraud\/","title":{"rendered":"Protect Yourself From Tax Fraud"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ready or not, Tax Day is quickly approaching. With the advancements in the online tax
\npreparation technology and software, many people who wouldnt dare attempt to
\nfile their own tax returns even just 5 years ago, can easily do so in the
\ncomforts of their own living room. For
\nthe average person, gone are the days of making an appointment with a tax
\nadvisor and spending a Saturday afternoon filing taxes. With the online tax preparation, someone can
\nfile their taxes at their own leisure and the software walks you through
\nexactly what to do, and even tells you if it thinks you’ve made a mistakenot only
\ndo you now have the convenience, but you also have the confidence in knowing
\nyour taxes (at least should be) are filed mistake free. However, there are inherent
\nrisks that come along with this convenience.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Tax returns are the crme de la crme for identity
\nthieves.Not only do online tax forms contain your
\npersonal and financial information, they also contain your spouses information
\nand your dependents information.Dont
\nget me wrong, online tax preparation is greatit makes filing a breeze and
\nmakes reviewing previous years tax returns nothing more than a few clicks of
\nthe mouse. However, you typically only
\nhave a username (most likely an email address) and probably an 8-12 character alpha-numeric
\npassword protecting documents which my grandparents use to put in a lockbox at
\ntheir bank.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, USA
\nToday<\/a> published an article that states in 2012 there were just shy of
\n450,000 victims whose stolen SSNs were used by thieves to collect unwarranted
\nrefunds; that number rose more than 80% over 2011.In a similar story, just yesterday
\n(Wednesday, Feb 27, 2013) authorities arrested six people in Los Angeles, CA
\nthat used nearly 2,000 stolen identities to file nearly 3,000 false tax returns and they obtained more
\nthan $19 million in unwarranted tax refunds. \n<\/p>\n

Until the time in which the online tax preparation companies
\nstart utilizing such products as EVS
IdentiFraud
\nConsumer<\/a> +
KBA<\/a>
\nto verify and authenticate the individual attempting to log-in is indeed who
\nthey claim to be, we, as consumers, must do our own due-diligence to ensure our
\ninformation is protected when filing taxes online. Check out this article and
\ninforgraphic from Mashable that mentions some ways to keep yourself safe and reduce
\nthe risk of becoming the next victim of
identity
\ntheft<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

[Contributed by Eric Knapp, VP of Client Services]<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ready or not, Tax Day is quickly approaching. With the advancements in the online tax preparation technology and software, many people who wouldnt dare attempt to file their own tax returns even just 5 years ago, can easily do so<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/evssolutions.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4640"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/evssolutions.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/evssolutions.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/evssolutions.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/evssolutions.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4640"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/evssolutions.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4640\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/evssolutions.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/evssolutions.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/evssolutions.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}