New Year = time for tax ID thieves

holiday gift trap

Although many of us don’t start thinking about filing our taxes until the flowers start to bloom, there is one group of people who enjoy filing taxes as early as possible: tax identity thieves. Tax ID fraudsters steal other people's tax refunds by filing as them, using names, addresses, Social Security numbers, and other stolen info. The scam only works for returns that haven't been filed by legitimate consumers, so fraudsters are highly motivated to file as early as possible.  

Tax ID theft was the biggest form of ID fraud reported to the Federal Trade Commission in 2014 and costs consumers $5.2 billion a year.

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