In the wake of several recent high-profile security breaches, employers are increasingly viewing identity theft protection as an essential employee benefit for employees. According to Willis Towers Watson’s 2016 voluntary benefits and services (VBS) survey, identity theft protection, offered by 35 percent of employers in 2015, could double to nearly 70 percent by 2018. Recognizing the changing needs of the workforce, employer-provided identity theft protection typically includes some form of coverage for financial losses (which can include lost wages) as well as case management services for victims of identity theft. 
Continue Reading Federal Tax Treatment of Employer-Provided Identity Protection Services

A new but old scam is on the rise and is reportedly hitting droves of unwary and vulnerable consumers. This new but old scam has increased now that tax season is over, and W2 scams are difficult to succeed this time of year. The criminals are always trying to find ways to make money, and sometimes old scams still work.

Similar to the scam where criminals call consumers pretending to be from the IRS and scaring people into sending them money because they believe it is the IRS and that they are behind on taxes (the IRS will NEVER call you on the phone), in this scam, the criminals call pretending to be from the utility company and threaten to shut off your electricity and power. Losing your electricity is a scary thought, so it has been quite successful.

The caller says you must wire money quickly or use a prepaid card and tries to pressure the consumer into believing that the money must be paid that day or the power will be shut off. This is not how utility companies work, so if you get a call like this, get the person’s name and number and tell them you will call them back.
Continue Reading Privacy Tip #84 – Utility Company Imposters Scaring and Scamming Vulnerable Consumers

On Thursday, Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) Commissioner John Koskinen testified that the personal data of up to a 100,000 taxpayers could have been compromised as a result of criminal use of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid Data Retrieval Tool (“DRT”). Last week, we posted that the IRS disabled the tool after it suspected

Last week, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and Federal Student Aid (FSA) announced that the Data Retrieval Tool (DRT) on fafsa.gov and StudentLoans.gov will be unavailable until extra security protections could be added. Since 2010, students have been able to use the DRT to transfer tax data directly into the Free Application for Federal Student

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) obtained authorization from a California federal court last November to serve a John Doe summons on the virtual currency firm Coinbase in order to obtain customer information to determine whether customers were using virtual currency to avoid paying income taxes.

Although the summons was issued in December, Coinbase has not

Although every year we lament about the significance of data breaches in the past year, 2016 was by far the worst. Data breaches were rampant, victimizing every industry and numbing consumers in the process. It was so bad that consumers began to throw up their hands and say “My personal information is out there anyway.

We have previously warned consumers about IRS phone scams that defraud consumers.

Basically, the fraudsters call unsuspecting victims over the telephone impersonating an IRS official, and intimidate the recipient of the call to believe that they have an outstanding tax liability and telling them that if they don’t pay up, they will be arrested and

Nakeisha Hall was sentenced in federal district court in August to serve nine years and two months in prison after she plead guilty for crimes she committed while working for the IRS Taxpayer Advocate Service. Instead of advocating for taxpayers, she actually used taxpayers’ personal information to commit fraud and identity theft against them.

Her