With the holidays just around the corner and the 2022 tax season getting closer, scammers are ramping up their activities too. As such, Americans are being urged to take extra care to protect sensitive financial information.
The Security Summit partners, a coalition of the IRS, state tax agencies, tax technology providers and tax professionals, are warning that taxpayers and tax professionals face a heightened risk in coming months as fraudsters continue to use the pandemic as a way of tricking people into sharing sensitive personal information by email, text message and online. Identity thieves can use that information to try filing tax returns and stealing refunds.
As Security Summit partners have increased their joint defenses against identity theft, including through the Identity Theft Information Sharing and Analysis Center (ISAC), fraudsters have increasingly looked for ways to obtain sensitive personal financial information to help slip past common defenses. That has made tax professionals – who hold valuable tax information for their clients – a tempting target for scam artists.
“The nation’s tax community has successfully joined forces to protect taxpayers through the Security Summit effort, but we need help in this continuing battle,” said IRS Commissioner Chuck Rettig. “Taxpayers and tax professionals are the first line of defense against scammers looking for refunds. We are entering a sensitive holiday and tax period, and we urge people to…
