Americans at Risk of Identity Theft as They File their Tax Returns (betanews.com)

Ian Barker, writing for BetaNews: As we move into the tax return season a new study reveals that attitudes to identity theft and a pattern of poor practices are leaving much of the public vulnerable. Data security and ID theft protection company CyberScout has carried out its second annual Tax Season Risk Report and finds 58 percent of Americans are not worried about tax fraud in spite of federal reports of 787,000 confirmed identity theft returns in 2016, totaling more than $4 billion in potential fraud. Among other findings are that only 35 percent of taxpayers demand that their preparers use two-factor authentication to protect their clients' personal information. Less than a fifth (18 percent) use an encrypted USB drive to save important documents like tax worksheets, W-2s, 1099s or 1040s. And another 38 percent either store tax documents on their computer's hard drive or in the cloud, approaches that are susceptible to a variety of hacks.

Comments

Re:scare mongering getting old

[rtb61]

Reality is "Identity Theft" is a purposeful lie produced by public relations and marketing agencies to push the burden of the crime from the banks to individuals. It is a lie. The reality is the fraud is not against the individual the fraud is against those who accept that false identity. Why the shift, so you the ignorant mug punters get stuck with the loss and the banks wander off laughing.

The truth is, when you get hit by a false claim, you are entitled to seek the prosecution of those who attempted to make that false claim. By any reasoned justice those who made the false claim against you must now prove they were defrauded by another party, else be charged with fraud themselves. It should never ever be up to you to prove anything, you should just be able to forward a complaint of false fiscal claims against you as fraud to the authorities and let them deal with it.

Of course the banks would end up with the bill, hence the scam of identity theft, where you the innocent party and now liable for the corrupt stupidity of the banks until you can prove your innocence, can you not see the criminal corruption in that.