If you live in the United States, then you know what time of year is coming up, tax season.
And along with it, all sorts of scams and fraud.
But there is one easy thing you can do to protect yourself against a type of fraud,
which is either someone filling out their own tax return but using your social security
number, or someone filling out a tax return in your name.
Both of these are a form of identity theft, and I'll explain why someone would do this
later, but it does happen.
And apparently at least one year was nearly 800,000 times.
And this is often enough where the IRS offers a feature to protect against it, which is
exactly what this video is all about.
It's called an Identity Protection or IP PIN, and the idea is simple.
It's a six digit PIN that you generate and is required to be included with your tax return.
Anyone filing a tax return with your social security number that doesn't have that PIN
will have it rejected, and the same goes if you instead use an Individual Tax Identification
Number.
And here's some more details about it.
So to get one of these IP pins, you go to irs.gov and then hover over file, and then
click "get an identity protection pin".
Which will take you to this page.
Or I'll also put the link in the description.
The PIN you generate is random, it's not like you pick it yourself, and also it's only going
to be valid for the current year, and you will need to generate a new one each year.
You'll need to use it for any tax returns you file in the current year, doesn't matter
how many, and also it doesn't matter which years the tax returns are actually for.
If you file your tax return with an accountant, make sure they have the PIN, and also if you
use software, make sure you put it into that.
Now if you happen to forget the PIN or file your tax return without it or incorrectly,
then it will simply be rejected.
However it does say if you file with a paper return that it will just take longer to process,
and I guess they verify it some other way.
Here's some additional information for when you go to actually generate this PIN.
So when you go to the page I showed you and click "Get An IP PIN," you will need to log
in.
And you can either sign in with an IRS account or an ID.me account, which is an account used
by a bunch of US government services, though it's run by a private company.
If you don't already have an account, you will need to register one and verify your
identity with some kind of government ID, like a driver's license.
Alternatively, you can request a PIN the old-fashioned way by mailing in a certain form, and they'll
mail you the number back.
But for some reason, if you have an income above a certain threshold, you cannot do it
this way.
A third option is to make an appointment in person at an IRS office and verify your identity
in person, and again they'll mail you the PIN.
I definitely think the best way is to just log in with an account.
That way if you lose the PIN, you can simply log in again and view it any time you need
to.
Now, you might be wondering why you should do this, and I'll give you two scenarios for
why someone might submit a tax return using your social security number.
The first is to try and steal your tax return money.
So someone might file a tax return with all of your info, your social security number,
and they will probably put in some fake income, but they'll put their info as the payment
info.
So when they submit it, it's all your stuff, but the tax refund will go to them, or at
least some account they have set up to collect the fraudulent money.
The other scenario is if someone files with all their own info, but just use your social
security number.
This could be the result of a simple mistake, some kind of clerical error, or someone put
the wrong social security number.
Or it could even be an undocumented immigrant who picked a random number and used it with
their employer so they could get a tax return, but just happened to pick yours.
So not purposefully malicious, but still a pain for you.
So definitely worth it to just avoid the trouble altogether and get one of these PINs as early
as possible, and maybe set a reminder in your calendar to get a new one every year.
Now on the IRS website, it does say you'll automatically get a new PIN if you got one
a previous year, but I could have sworn that I did this a previous year and still had to
request one this year.
So I wouldn't depend on that, and maybe just check yourself every year and get one.
Now while you're at it, here are some additional tips that I would recommend.
So first, I would say you should probably sign up and get a social security account
with ssa.gov.
It's called a "My Social Security" Account.
Because I know for a while I read at the time it was pretty easy for someone to use your
info and just sign up for an account and then divert payments to themselves if you were
getting social security payments.
I don't know if it's that easy anymore, but the thing is there can only be one account
per social security number, so if someone signs up for you, then you're kind of screwed
and you got to go through a whole hassle.
So you may as well just sign up for one yourself, even if you don't plan to use it, just so
no one else can.
Also to further protect your identity in this day and age, you should just keep all your
credit reports frozen at the three major credit bureaus.
So Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion.
It's free to do this and you can always unfreeze it temporarily whenever you need to apply
for credit or something, and this will prevent someone from being able to steal your identity
and apply for credit cards or whatever.
But there's also another one that not many people know about, which is called ChexSystems,
and from my understanding, this is kind of like a credit report for bank accounts.
Or at least this is one that a lot of banks use when creating a bank account.
So I would definitely freeze this so no one can go and create a bank account in your name,
and again, you can unfreeze it if you need to, but how often do you create a new bank
account?
So anyway hopefully you enjoyed this video and learned something.
If you did, be sure to give it a big thumbs up and let me know down in the comments if
you have any tips yourself.
If you want to keep watching, the next video I'd recommend is one I made talking about
a devastating new scam that has stolen billions of dollars from people, and it's actually
really smart, and you should definitely know about it.
I'll put that link right there.
So thanks so much for watching guys, and I'll see you in the next one.