Money and Stuff

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Filing your taxes online is the most practical and simple way to do it, saving you time, paper and money. The US tax office, the IRS, recommends on its site several tax filing companies, some that help you file for free and others that you have to pay, depending on the ease or difficulty of your tax return. People who are going to file a simple tax return like a 1040-EZ don’t have to pay anything to file electronically. 

This past couples of years, experts have noted how tax season is prime time for hackers and tax fraud scammers. The reason is obvious: it’s the time of the year when everyone who lives in the US and has a salary, as well as US citizens living abroad have to file their tax returns with the IRS. Millions of consumers worldwide are typing their personal information, their income and even their bank accounts online. For those looking to steal tax returns –a type of crime rising exponentially- or to steal someone’s identity to open accounts and scam, it’s like Christmas.

Stolen Identity Refund Fraud is already a type of crime listed by the Department of Justice. In January of this year over a hundred people were arrested in the state of Florida in an operation against a group that had obtained personal information belonging to tens of thousands of taxpayers, and who had filed countless tax returns already, assuming these taxpayers’ identities, requesting over 60 million dollars in refunds.

I can see how it’s easy to think it’s impossible to protect yourself against this type of tax fraud, but there are ways to do so, as I’ll explain today.

The sooner you file your taxes, the better
By law every employer must mail W-2 forms (the ones that include the employee’s salary

and various tax payments for the tax year) no later than January 31 each year. Therefore, taxpayers have them in their hands no later than the first week of February.

The sooner you file, the sooner the IRS will have your data, which puts you ahead of any scammer trying to file in your name. I know, if you have to pay, this option isn’t exactly appealing but honestly, when having to choose between the hassle of having to pay extra, or the much greater hassle of having your identity stolen to defraud the IRS in your name and the hassle that will come from clearing your name with them after that… which would you really choose.

Use a licensed tax filing agent
When you visit the IRS e-file page for electronic filings, they provide you a long list of tax filing software programs. They are easy to use because they work by means of questions that they ask you, and use your answers to fill your tax return in all the right places for you. At the end you get the option to file electronically, or to print and mail.

Note: to use these programs you’ll need to know your Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) from

the previous year for the IRS to confirm your filing. Have last year’s tax return Handy if you plan on filing this way.

I do recommend the use of one of the authorized and recommended companies and, furthermore, I recommend that you try to stick to the same company every year, because that’ll make your info –and data- harder to steal.

Take care of your devices
Soon I’ll be writing on the latest cybersecurity threats, but for today I want to emphasize the need to maintain one’s computer and any devices that connect to the internet fully updated.

Hackers and malware programmers dedicate all their time to finding exploits in flaws on the operating systems, software and apps we own. That’s why the companies that create those very operating systems, programs and apps spend their time wiring updates that add layers of security to them against the latest known threats. Those are the very updates that we find pending on our phones, tablets and computers, and we should always install them asap.

Take care of your internet access...
We have to get used to being more careful about this. I say we because I fall easily into the

category of people who should know better (which goes to tell that it’s something that happens in the best families, haha!). Every short password we have –those easy-to-remember dates, the cat’s or dog’s name…), every password we haven’t changed since, well, ever for the sake of ease, and every password that we repeat across various website signups increase our risk that, if a hacker or malware gains access to our device, a small problem becomes horrible, ugly, and hairy. Let’s do something about it, OK?

Also, I can’t stress enough the need of a good antivirus. Here’s PC Magazine’s updated list of the best AV software around.

Take care of what you do online
My aunt Eleanor and a couple of friends have been sending me these past couple of weeks, via Skype, links that say stuff like “check out these hot, naked girls”.

When you receive messages from people who would clearly not be sending you those things, you instantly know they’ve been hacked and never open those links. But there are times when these dangerous links and files come in far more subtle shapes, and are very hard to spot.

Phishing specialists can send you emails that seem to come from completely authentic

sources –your bank or credit union, your email account administrators like Gmail or MSN, or your gaming platform like Steam or Origin- that say that something’s happened to your account and you need to log in to verify something or other. These emails contain links or files to open. They look 100% legitimate, and the only way to tell friend from foe in these cases is to know this: your bank, credit union, email provider or gaming platforms will never, ever give you a link to click and to enter your credentials, or file to look at. They won’t do it because they’re fully aware that this is how phishing scams work.

So, if we get it into our heads that we are never, ever going to be contacted this way, we won’t have any problem telling a legitimate email from a phishing one.

Final note
There is a lot more information on tax time scams. OAS FCU has a page that explains some of the latest scams during tax time and gives very good tips on protecting yourself not just from online scams but from other professional scammers that seek to steal during this season.