With April 15 fast approaching, it’s not surprising that the IRS is overwhelmed by tax return identity theft. With this type of crime identity thieves are stealing your identity and then submitting fraudulent tax returns to the IRS and collecting your refund check.
In January, the IRS posted an article on its website titled Tips for Taxpayers, Victims About Identity Theft and Tax Returns. We already covered many of the same IRS tips in our post listing ways to protect yourself from identity theft for free, but there’s an additional tip specific to tax return identity theft: file early. If you file your tax return before the identity thief, the thief’s return will be red-flagged.
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