IR-2024-295, Nov. 21, 2024

WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service, working with the Security Summit partners, today announced a special awareness week focusing on taxpayers and tax professionals to protect sensitive financial information from identity thieves and tax scams as the holidays and the 2025 tax season approach.

The 9th annual National Tax Security Awareness Week takes place this year from Dec. 2–6 by the members of the Security Summit, a coalition of the IRS, state tax administrators, tax software companies, the tax professional community and others in the larger tax community. The group formed in 2015 to combat tax-related identity theft through a public-private sector partnership that strengthened internal protections and raised awareness about security threats.

With the holiday shopping season underway and tax season quickly approaching, the Security Summit partners urge taxpayers and tax professionals to take extra steps to protect their financial and tax information during this critical period. During the holiday season, people face the heightened risk of identity theft as criminals ramp up efforts to trick people into sharing sensitive personal information including through email, text message and social media scams and schemes. Identity thieves might use this information to try filing false tax returns and stealing refunds.

“We are entering into a critical period where taxpayers need to be extra careful protecting their valuable information,” said IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel. “Scams and schemes are quickly evolving. Extra caution by people during the holiday season and the upcoming filing season will be essential to avoid being a victim. By being aware of the risks, taxpayers can protect themselves, their families and their communities. Vigilant taxpayers are on the front lines of the larger efforts by the Security Summit partners to strengthen the tax system against identity theft and tax scams.”

The work of the Security Summit to strengthen internal systems and share information across the tax system about fraudsters continues to show results. Since its inception, the work of the Security Summit has helped protect millions of taxpayers against identity theft and prevented billions of dollars from being wrongly paid out to fraudsters.

But as the IRS and the Summit partners have strengthened their systems, identity thieves have increasingly turned their attention to stealing underlying tax and financial information from taxpayers, businesses and tax professionals in hopes of slipping authentic-looking tax returns through the defenses.

To counter this threat to individuals and businesses, National Tax Security Awareness Week features a week-long series of educational efforts by the Summit partners to educate and inform taxpayers and tax professionals. The week will focus on how to defend against identity theft and other scams, including inaccurate social media information. This year’s campaign includes:

• Daily press releases and Tax Tips during the week of Dec. 2 highlighting specific issues that can protect taxpayers and tax professionals from identity theft and tax schemes.
• Social media awareness on X, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. Follow @IRSTaxSecurity, @IRSnews and #TaxSecurity on X for the latest information.
• Special educational materials, including e-posters and IRS publications, will also be available to share information not just during the special week but the upcoming filing season.
• Dozens of information-sharing sessions by IRS Stakeholder Liaisons with local tax professional groups and community events.

The IRS and Summit partners continue to focus on combating identity thieves and their increasingly sophisticated scams. Identity thieves often impersonate the IRS and others in the tax community using fake emails, texts and online scams. These schemes frequently use recent tragedies or imitate charitable groups to coax people into sharing sensitive financial data, which can lead to tax-related identity theft.

There has been an increase of these activities on social media, including inaccurate tax advice that continues to mislead taxpayers. To help counter this, many of the Security Summit partners have joined together to form the Coalition Against Scam and Scheme Threats (CASST). This group will be increasingly active during the upcoming tax season.

"This special security week highlights ongoing threats against taxpayers and their information," said Sharonne Bonardi, Executive Director of the Federation of Tax Administrators. "State tax agencies are deeply committed to proactive fraud detection and prevention, and ensuring taxpayers and the revenue system are protected is a top priority for us and our Security Summit Partners. The National Tax Security Awareness Week provides important information to help in the ongoing battle against identity theft that we encourage you to read and share with others."

A key tool in identifying and defending against these identity theft scams is the Identity Theft Information Sharing and Analysis Center (ISAC), which was developed by the IRS and Security Summit partners to better identify and coordinate against fraudsters. As the group has strengthened defenses inside the tax system to spot emerging scams, identity thieves continue to look for ways to obtain sensitive personal financial information to file fraudulent tax returns. That has made tax professionals, who hold sensitive tax information on their clients, a key target for scam artists.

"The combined efforts of the Security Summit partners continue to protect millions of taxpayers from identity thieves. But the threat of tax-related identity theft remains, including the increasing presence of tax scams circulating on social media that pose a threat not just during tax season, but during the holidays and throughout the year. Consumers and tax professionals play an important role in helping us in this effort, and the information during this special week can help protect people from these continuing threats," said Julie Magee, one of the original participants in the Security Summit and Tax Policy Lead for Cash App Taxes.

The security awareness effort is a year-round effort in the tax community. This year’s National Tax Security Awareness Week provides extra awareness for taxpayers during the critical holiday period and in advance of the 2025 tax season. Highlights this year are listed below.

National Tax Security Awareness Week 2024 highlights

Cyber Monday: Beware of phishing as part of online safety

The Security Summit will remind taxpayers to approach Cyber Monday holiday shopping with caution because scammers are also shopping – for their next victim’s personal information. Beware of common email scams including phishing and smishing, spear phishing, clone phishing and whaling. Other common scams include fake delivery notifications, a particularly active scam during the busy holiday season, as well as unexpected messages promising people a tax refund.

Especially during the holiday season, some basic safety steps include:

• Shop at sites with web addresses that begin with the letters “https:” – the “s” stands for secure communications; also look for a padlock icon in the browser window.
• Don't shop on unsecured public Wi-Fi in places like a mall or restaurant.
• Ensure security software is updated on computers, tablets and mobile phones, includes a feature to stop malware, and that there is a firewall enabled to prevent intrusions.
• Protect the devices of family members, including young children, older adults and other less technologically savvy users.
• Use strong, unique passwords for online accounts.
• Use multi-factor authentication whenever possible.

Tuesday: Don't fall for schemes, misinformation on social media

The IRS and Summit partners continue to see a variety of filing season hashtags and social media topics misleading taxpayers with inaccurate and potentially fraudulent information. Many of these share a common theme of people trying to use legitimate tax forms for the wrong reason.

The IRS has seen a spike this year in the following scams:

• “Self Employment Tax Credit”, which in reality doesn’t exist.
• Household employment taxes, which taxpayers are coaxed into claiming by inventing fake household employees.
• Fuel Tax Credit, for which many claimants aren’t eligible as it’s meant for off-highway business and farming use. The vast majority of individual taxpayers do not qualify for the Fuel Tax Credit. It is only for businesses that use certain types of fuel (not for the gas people put in their car).
• Inflated Income and Withholding, which encourages people to use tax software to manually fill out Form W-2, Wage and Tax Statement, and include false income information.
• Claim of Right, in which taxpayers are advised to file tax returns and attempt to take a deduction equal to the entire amount of their wages.

Wednesday: Get an IP PIN and IRS Online Account

The IRS will remind taxpayers to add an extra layer of protection between their tax returns and identity thieves by joining the Identity Protection Personal Identification Number (IP PIN) program at the start of the 2025 tax season. They can do so after creating an IRS Online Account, a critical online tool that allows taxpayers to securely access their tax and return information from prior years.

• An IP PIN is a unique six-digit number used to verify a taxpayer's identity when filing a return.
• More than 10.4 million taxpayers already have their IP PIN.
• To get one, a taxpayer must create or sign onto their IRS online account and set a reminder to sign-in in early January, when the IP PIN program reopens for registration following a brief shutdown for maintenance.
• IP PINS are only valid for a year; participating taxpayers must acquire a new PIN annually.
• Never share an IP PIN with anyone but a trusted tax advisor.

Thursday: Update digital security to protect businesses and customers

The Security Summit partners will offer taxpayers ways to guard against identity thieves looking to pilfer personal information like names, passwords and account numbers. The fraudsters are relentless in sending emails, texts and direct messages made to look like they come from a legitimate source, like the IRS, state tax agencies, a bank or a trusted tax professional. Taxpayers need to watch for such solicitations and the dangerous links, attachments and contact information they contain. Never click, call or reply on these without first independently verifying the source.

Steps that can protect taxpayers, businesses and tax professionals include:

• Automatically update security software.
• Back up important files.
• Require strong passwords and pair them with multi-factor authentication (MFA).
• Encrypt all devices.

Friday: Tax pros need to maintain heightened awareness

Identity thieves on the hunt for taxpayer data aren’t just targeting taxpayers, they’re also going after tax professionals who receive and hold large amounts of sensitive taxpayer data. This makes the tax pros a tempting target for identity thieves.

To help guard against loss, the IRS and Security Summit partners this year released an updated Written Information Security Plan (WISP). Tax pros can use these as a roadmap to protect their practice. Under federal law, tax pros are required to have a WISP on hand, and this tool offers an easy template that can be scaled to any size tax practice. The Summit partners also remind tax pros that they also required by law to use MFA with clients.

In addition to getting a WISP and establishing an action plan in case of a system breach or data theft, the IRS also recommends signing up for a Tax Pro Account. The Summit partners also remind tax pros to report a security event affecting 500 or more people to the FTC as soon as possible, but no later than 30 days from the date of discovery.

Go to National Tax Security Awareness Week 2024 for additional information.

More resources

For more information on preventing tax information theft, visit Security Summit.

Victims of identity theft can visit Identity Theft Central.

Find additional information at Tax scams.

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