 Internal Revenue Service IRS Tax News Security Summit focused a special week on identity theft to protect taxpayers, tax professionals as holiday and tax season's approach. Protect me from identity theft. It's too late. The IRS already knows who I am. And I mean, they're like the most ruthless group on the interwebs these days. It's like they've become so bold. They actually found out who my employer is and are currently shaking them down like on a weekly basis. Making my employer give them the IRS like a large portion of the salary before I even get it. I mean, can you believe that? I mean, the IRS is even more ruthless than like Greta Thumberg toward the CEO of the energy company at her toy Lego town. A Lego town powered by Pixie Dust, mind you. How dare you. I mean, honestly, like the IRS saying they're going to protect my identity is like Al Capone saying he's going to protect me from like booze. It's ridiculous. But anyways, first a joke. The press told President Biden, if you don't get inflation under control, your presidency will suffer a fate worse than death. You retired too? Not me. I'm in my prime. And President Biden was like, oh, come on, man. How could you even tell if I have a face worse than death? If Edwards gets wind of this, he'll use it against you in the campaign. He'll try to prove that you're incompetent. I can prove that as well as he can. Yeah, it's impossible because death always keeps his face hidden behind that giant hood. Yeah, I should know. I saw death just last night while he was checking his watch. Little Han says it's time to rock and roll. I was right next to him and I still couldn't see his face. From the Pentagon, sir, we just decoded it. Very good here. Help me with this. My eyes are ceramic. A bazooka round, a little big one. Where's the token hour? The one went out to the Indians. It's the final orders. We strike tomorrow at 0600. Excellent. Wake me up at 0530. Not face. Fate. Fate worse than death. The press corrected. Well, gentlemen, we've waited a long time to hear this. In exactly five hours and 17 minutes, we hit the enemy coast. I think that's the enemy coast, sir. Huh? Coast. I'll take a little more planning, but it doesn't matter. And President Biden was like, well, I don't know. Death was looking like he was in pretty good shape to me. If you have trouble hitting, you're objective. Your secondary targets are here and here. An accordion factory and a mime school. I mean, after checking his watch, he did some calisthenics, swinging his sickle repeatedly and about shoulder level. I mean, honestly, death looks like he's in such good shape he could probably decapitate someone with that swing. Good luck, gentlemen. Link, take over. Oh, there's one more thing. That might not get that's probably for me. IR 2022-202, November 18, 2022, Washington. The Internal Revenue Service, along with state tax agencies in the nation's tax industry, today announced a special week focusing attention on empowering taxpayers to protect sensitive financial information against identity thieves as the holidays and the 2023 tax season get closer. Now, in its seventh year, the annual National Tax Security Awareness Week takes place from November 28, December 2nd. So that's November 28 to December 2nd. The event is part of a larger effort that continues by the Security Summit. There's a link to them here. The coalition of the IRS, the states, and the nation's tax software and tax professional community. The group formed in 2015 to combat tax-related identity theft by strengthening protections against fraud and raising security awareness. With the holidays and tax season approaching, the summit partners warned taxpayers and tax professionals to take extra steps to protect their financial and tax information. People faced a heightened risk in coming months as fraudsters take advantage of the holiday season to trick people into sharing sensitive personal information by email, text message, and online. So we have been on heightened alert for some time due in part, of course, to the pandemic, the issues with the pandemic, and then with the responses to them, which in part have been the IRS changing the tax code. So those changes kind of confuse things and an emphasis, especially on the lower income with the refundable credits, which makes it more valuable oftentimes for the thieves to be stealing the identities of lower income individuals possibly because they might be able to get those refundable credits if they can file, say, a fraudulent tax return. That on top of the fact that now we're at the year-end holiday season, which naturally always is a place where you have to be more vigilant for the fraudsters because it is a more fraudster-rich environment at that point in time because they're always targeting stuff on the holiday season. So identity thieves use that information to try and file tax returns and steal refunds. So again, you've got to keep more of your focus. You always have the frauds in general like charities and that kind of stuff, especially during the holiday seasons. But remember that the fact that you've got more of these refundable credits means that a lot of these frauds might be geared more towards information that can be used to file tax returns to get access to some of that refundable credit kind of stuff. So to help combat this, the Summit Partners National Tax Security Awareness Week will feature a week-long series of educational materials to help protect individuals, businesses and tax professionals from identity theft. The effort will include a November 29 webinar titled, Deeper Dive into Emerging Cyber Crimes and Crypto Tax Compliance. There's a link to that here, special information graphics and a social media effort on Twitter and Instagram through at IRS News and Hashtag Tax Software. Quote, taxpayers and tax professionals need to remain vigilant for increasingly sophisticated scams that look to steal sensitive financial information. End quote said IRS Acting Commissioner Doug O'Donald. Quote, the security summer effort focuses on highlighting simple steps that small businesses and people in all walks of life can take to protect their information, helping them avoid problems at tax time. End quote. The IRS and Summit Partners continue to see constantly evolving threats and scams. So we've got an obviously constantly changing environment with the web and changes there with technology, which leads to more types of scams. And currently we have constantly changing environments with the tax code. And right now those changes are focused in on lower income tax returns possibly with these refundable credits. So you would think again that would be where you want to kind of look where the scams might be leading towards. So they mimic IRS others in the tax community through fake emails, texts and online scams. These schemes frequently use recent tragedies or charitable groups to coax people into sharing sensitive financial information. So clearly most of us have seen kind of the generic spamming type of stuff, which usually is not that sophisticated. But you can tell that as the environment changes, then the unsophisticated emails could still be somewhat threatening because we haven't seen them before. And then two, if they do target an individual's or a tax professional, they can't be much more sophisticated. I mean, there's probably reasons why they make an unsophisticated kind of attack because they're actually looking for someone to follow through with that attack. If they have to provide sensitive information or contact them directly to get money from them or something, then they're going to want the unsophisticated people to the more naive people to kind of follow through with it. But if they're focusing in on a smaller group of people, you would think that they might make a more complex structure, which they might do these days at the people of the nodes that are holding more of this. Information that they can use to file fraudulent tax returns, that would be possibly lower income individuals, tax software and tax professionals, unfortunately. Quote, the heightened risk to taxpayers poses a real threat. The criminals continue to evolve and are always looking for opportunity to fraudulently obtain this information. In quote, said Nina Savage, President of the Board of Trustees for the Federation of Tax Administrators and Tax Administrator for Rhode Island. Quote, we urge everyone to take the steps necessary to protect their sensitive information, which simultaneously helps strengthen the joint work conducted by the states, the IRS and the tax industry through the security summit partnership. In quote, a security, a security summit partners increased their joint defenses against identity theft in recent years, including through the identity theft information sharing and analysis center. That's the ISIC fraudsters have increased, looked for ways to obtain sensitive personal financial information to help slip past common defenses that has made tax professionals who hold valuable tax information for their clients, a tempting target for scam artists. Quote, the innovative tax, the innovative summit partnership between the public and private sector has created important protections against tax related identity theft, said Julie McGee, tax regulatory lead at cash app taxes and an original member of the security summit who currently serves as the group's communications co-chair. In quote, this collaboration effort continues to thwart identity thieves helping protect taxpayers and tax professionals, while also safeguarding the federal and state tax system essential to running our nation. So with International Fraud Awareness Week underway through November 19th this year, the security summit offers a preview of the upcoming National Tax Security Awareness Week that begins November 28th. So here we have it. We got the overview with National Tax Security Awareness Week 2022 highlights. You got the Cyber Monday Protect Personal and Financial Information online. So we'll probably see some more of this obviously throughout the week. So I'll just go over this fairly quickly. The IRS and the security summit partners remind people to take these basic steps when shopping online. Use secure software for computers and mobile phone and keep it updated. Make sure antivirus software for computers has a feature to stop malware and that there is a firewall enabled that can prevent intrusions. Use strong and unique passwords for all accounts. Use multi-factor authentication whenever possible. Shop only secure websites. Look for the HTTPS and web addresses and the padlock icon. Avoid shopping on unsecure and public Wi-Fi in places like coffee shops, malls and restaurants. Tax professionals should review their security protocols. As identity thieves continue to target tax professionals, the IRS and the summit partners urge practitioners to review the tax security together checklist. There's a link to that here, including deploy basic security measures. Use multi-factor authentication to protect tax software accounts. Create a virtual private network if working remotely. Create a written data security plan as required by federal law. Know about phishing and phone scams. Create data security and data theft recovery plans. So get an identity protection PIN pin. Taxpayers who can verify their identities online may opt into the IRS IPPIN program a tool taxpayers can use to protect themselves and their tax refund. Here's what taxpayers need to know. The identity protection PIN or IPPIN is a six digit code known only to the individual and the IRS. It provides another layer of protection for taxpayers social security numbers on tax returns. Use the get an identity protection PIN the IPPIN tax tool at irs.gov forward slash IPPIN to immediately get an IPPIN. Never share the IPPIN with anyone but the trusted tax provider. Again, we'll probably dive into some of the stuff in more detail in the week. So I'm not going to try to expand on each one of these items. We'll just go over the overview. So businesses should watch out for tax related scams and implement safeguards. Most cyber attacks are aimed at small businesses with fewer than 100 employees. Some details from these segments include learn about best security practices for small businesses. IRS continues protective masking of sensitive information on business transcripts. A business identity theft affidavit form 14039B is available for businesses to report theft to the IRS. Beware of various scams, especially the W2 scam that attempts to steal employee income information. Check out the quote business end quote section on IRS's identity theft central. There's a link to that here. Earlier this year, the protect your clients protect yourself campaign. There's a link to it. Encourage tax professionals to focus on fundamentals and to watch out for emerging of all vulnerabilities for those practitioners using cloud based services for their practice. So you can look at that. And then you have all these additional resources that you can also check up on in your like leisurely reading time. In addition to reviewing IRS publication for 557 safeguarding taxpayer data, tax professionals can also get help with security recommendations by reviewing small business information security, the fundamentals. There's a link to that here by the National Institute of Standards and Technology. You've also got the IRS identity theft central page. There's a link to that for tax pros individuals and businesses have important details as well. The IRS and security summit partners also share YouTube videos on security steps for taxpayers, so they must be really popular. The videos can be viewed or downloaded at easy steps to protect your computer and iPhone. There's a link to that here and security measures help protect against tax related identity theft. There's a link to that here so employers can share publication 4524 security awareness for taxpayers. There's a link to that with their employees and customers and tax professionals can share with clients. So there's a lot of reading material here people and we're going to hear about the security summit telling us all this stuff that on how you know how to secure the stuff next week so or whatever when it when this starts. So it's going to be great and we'll hear about that more later and there'll be a link to this in the description.