Identity Theft, the IRS, and Personal Data Security

In recent years the Internal Revenue Service, the states, and the tax industry have taken major strides in combating identity theft. Identity thieves know that if they can obtain enough information they can make a ludicrous amount of money filing fraudulent returns. According to the Internal Revenue Service’ own statistics, they have seen a significant increase in identity theft refund fraud. Obviously due to this explosion in fraud the need for protecting taxpayer identification has grown exponentially.

As a Sole Proprietor Certified Public Accountant, The Mobile CPA, I am extremely concerned about my clients’ personal information and take every precaution and measure to protect it. I know the damage my clients and business would suffer if their information were compromised. I would like to think my fellow tax industry professionals feel the same, and take similar precautions. Knowing how much painstaking work and taxpayer money goes into fighting identity theft and tax fraud, it infuriates me when I see tax kiosks operating in public places like this:

Here we have an elderly couple (woman facing me, gentleman leaning back in chair) having their taxes prepared (preparer behind partition) with the protective curtains pulled back out of the way for everyone to see, including the younger gentleman with child waiting in line. I purposefully took the picture from this angle with the screens not showing in order to protect any information from being seen.

I ask anyone who is thinking about utilizing these tax kiosks to please reconsider. The potential risk of being an identity theft victim is far too great.