Tax fraud is a growing national problem. In 2014, tax fraud was 32.8% of identity theft complaints received by the FTC, the largest category of such complaints.

A small number of members of the BU community have been notified by the IRS that a tax return has already been submitted for their SSN. This does not indicate that BU has had a data breach, nor that we should expect to see a greater number of these cases than average across the country.

If you receive such a notification and are therefore a victim of tax related identity fraud, take these steps immediately:

1. Call the IRS directly at 800-829-1040 to confirm that the message legitimately came from them. If it is a phishing message, report it to phishing@irs.gov
2. If someone did file a tax return using your information, contact the IRS Identity Protection Specialized Unit at 1-800-908-4490 and the states where you file taxes to report the issue and begin resolution.
3. File a police report in the jurisdiction covering your home address. Identity fraud is a crime and this will allow law enforcement to aggregate reports, uncovered trends and hopefully identify the criminal offenders.
4. File a fraud report with the credit reporting agencies and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). If someone is committing fraud using your information, you need to make it more difficult for them to continue to do so. Instructions for making such reports and for other steps you should take to resolve tax-related identity fraud can be found at the following IRS web sites:
• http://www.irs.gov/uac/Taxpayer-Guide-to-Identity-Theft
• http://www.irs.gov/Individuals/Identity-Protection
• http://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0008-tax-related-identity-theft

More information may also be found in this article from REN-ISAC.