Identity theft protection

Leaders of the Senate Finance Committee said they were “taken aback” to find out the Internal Revenue Service has recently signed a $7.25 million contract with Equifax for verifying taxpayer identities after the company admitted to a massive data breach exposing the personal information of approximately half of all Americans.

The Internal Revenue Service has proposed regulations allowing truncated Taxpayer Identification Numbers on the Form W-2 to help protect people’s Social Security Numbers from identity theft.

Hilderbrand & Clark, a CPA firm based in San Ramon, Calif., disclosed it detected unauthorized access to its computer systems from abroad while filing tax returns.

‘Refund locks’ would make taxpayer information useless to identity thieves.

The Internal Revenue Service spent the extra $290 million appropriated by Congress last year to improve taxpayer service and cybersecurity and safeguard against identity theft, according to a new report.

The Internal Revenue Service held a meeting of its Security Summit partners Tuesday in Dallas and reported on progress in battling identity theft tied to tax refund fraud, along with some setbacks.

An old banking procedure could add another layer of security to IRS return processing.

The Internal Revenue Service and its tax industry partners warned tax professionals Tuesday that takeovers of tax professionals’ accounts by cybercriminals are on the rise.

The Internal Revenue Service and its Security Summit partners in state tax agencies and the tax industry have begun a new education campaign for tax professionals warning them against phishing emails.

The Electronic Tax Administration Advisory Committee is recommending ways for the Internal Revenue Service to combat tax fraud and identity theft with better cybersecurity.

The Internal Revenue Service, along with state tax agencies and the tax industry, is cautioning tax preparers to beware of a new phishing scheme revolving around emails claiming to be from a tax software education provider.

The number of victims of employment-related identity theft is far larger than previously estimated and the Internal Revenue Service’s processes aren’t able to keep up, according to a new report.

Every accountant and tax pro should make these steps part of their cyber-security strategy.

The Internal Revenue Service is planning June 18 as the tentative date for moving its e-Services platform to what it promises will be more secure and modern technology.

The Internal Revenue Service’s new procedure for authenticating withholding information did not go completely smoothly this past tax season, although it did hold promise for combating identity theft and tax fraud.

As Tax Day looms near, cybercriminals will be making a strong push down the final stretch.

A data breach in the Internal Revenue Service’s Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, tool, which the IRS was forced to shut down last month, may have affected up to 100,000 taxpayers.

A new report from the Government Accountability Office questions the usefulness of services such as identity monitoring, credit monitoring and identity theft insurance, particularly when it comes to safeguarding against tax refund fraud.

The Internal Revenue Service has seen a proliferation in the past 24 hours of a phishing email seeking to steal tax practitioners’ usernames and passwords for the IRS's online services.

The Internal Revenue Service failed to deactivate its Identity Protection Personal Identification Number program after a data breach in May 2015 for nearly a year, despite repeated recommendations from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, according to a new report.