I'm going to give you some information on how you can protect yourself from
people trying to steal your identity, especially when it comes to filing your tax
returns. Like, I know a lot of people get big refunds when you file
your tax returns, right? And there are people out there where if they can
get ahold of your social security number, your birthday,
and your name, they can actually file a tax return on your behalf.
And the IRS, they'll actually send out a lot of refunds without like doing
all the work, all the due diligence without looking at all the numbers first,
they'll just send the refunds first. And then they'll send notices to try to
claw back the refunds if they over sent money later.
Like, they're just in a mad rush every tax season to send out refunds.
That sometimes they'll send them quickly,
a little too quickly, and then they try to claw back the money later.
But here's how that could be a problem for you. So say that someone
has your information. If,
say it's middle of January. But you don't, like,
you might not even file your tax return until mid-March. Or even until October
each year if you're waiting on documents or for whatever reason.
There could be someone, if they have your information, they could go file a
tax return and claim a refund using your Social Security your name and
your address or just your Social Security birthday and name.
They could claim that refund, get the refund,
put it into their account, and then say six months later the IRS could
come after you to pay back that refund. So it might even be completely
fraudulent but it happens every year and it's completely possible if our information
is ever leaked. And I know we all have our information at these big
companies, right? We have our information at banks and payment information.
We have our information at Facebook and Twitter and all these big corporations.
And every, every so often these corporations, they get their information leaked.
And if you have, so if you've ever had your identity stolen,
like, it's just, Thank you. Know, it can just be a nightmare. But what
I'm, what I'm getting at here is the IRS does have a way where
they can prevent people from filing tax returns on your behalf without an extra
step, without an extra, it's almost like a secondary.
Social Security number. It's an identity protection pin.
I'll go into the details on how you get one of those. But again,
it's just the point,
the first point I wanted to make is that the IRS will send refunds
to. Quickly and if it's fraudulent,
the IRS will still come after you if it was underneath your social security
number. So to prevent a ton of headache, I do recommend getting an IP
pin. So an identity protection pin with the IRS.
So this pin. You obtain it right from the IRS website and they're actually
they close down every year, every November and December.
They close their website for for doing upgrades and maintenance and getting ready for
the next tax season. It's this is November 2023 so
it's too late to get an IP pin for the 2023 tax filing year
but when they open back up in November, I would highly recommend getting one.
You can get one for yourself and you can get one for your kids.
I've got some, I've got some clients we've had some stories in the past
where like, like,
very, like minor kids like 10,
11, 12 years old, our clients have had when they go to claim their
kids. They found out that their kids,
it's showing, the IRS is showing that the kids have already filed a tax
return and they're like, no, my 11 year old did not go file a
tax return. My 11 year old did not have income, did not file a
tax return. And like as the,
when we're preparing it through the CPA firm, there's nothing we can do.
We can't go and undo what had already been done.
The only thing that could be done at that point is like just not
claiming the kid is a dependent so you're out that $2000.
And the IRS
is getting a $1000 child tax credit which is a major pain. In the
long term, it can be fixed and the IRS can get through it but
it will take 12 to 18 months is my estimate on how long it
would take to recover from that and have the IRS like it's actual.
Someone at the IRS manually going through your information and changing it.
It just takes forever. So I would go get an IP pin,
go to the website. It's if you search,
you just go to a browser and search IRS,
IP pin. You'll find it, but because the,
the, the website is pretty long, but it's iris.gov forward slash identity
dash theft dash fraud dash scams forward slash get.
Thanks for watching, and I'll see you next time. Get dash n dash identity
dash protection dash pin. So iris.gov forward slash identity theft
fraud scams forward slash get an identity protection pin.
Between each of those words, you got a dash. So we'll link that below
for you, but it's you've got if you want one for yourself you need
to create a login. The iris will verify your identity,
verify your address. It'll, it'll ask for prior.
Information based on prior, your tax returns. And if you want to get one
for your kids, it'll ask the same thing, like social security number,
address, birthdays. It'll want another way to verify you that so you can prove
that you are who you say you are. And then they'll send you in
the mail, they'll send you a pin, and you will need that pin to
file your tax return. And it just makes it extra hard for someone doing
something fraudulent to file a tax return for your behalf.
Pin, the IRS Identity Protection Pin,
I highly recommend getting one if you want that extra layer of protection for
yourself your kids, your family members.
