After announcing last week that TurboTax suspended state of the e-file capability income taxes temporarily due to slight increase in fraudulent returns, the FBI began an investigation to determine the cause, according to the Wall Street Journal. Intuit, the maker of TurboTax, initially said the pirates have not failed its software and fraudulent information used to make bogus statements was recovered elsewhere. The suspension of e-filing state returns lasted about a day. Rival tax preparation services H & R Block and TaxACT of Blucora Inc. said they have not seen a jump in activity fraud this year.
What new evidence has been discovered in the case of TurboTax fraud?
The FBI is trying to determine if in fact there was a breach in the TurboTax software, despite the refusal of the company. The office is also investigating whether the file fraudulent federal tax returns were filed by TurboTax using these potentially raped information. TurboTax did not freeze the federal tax returns, but a dozen software users said returns were filed in their names without their consent.
The statements of income in 19 states are believed to be affected by these fraudulent claims. Some states, such as Minnesota, took the drastic step of stopping the statements produced by TurboTax for a day, although this was largely symbolic because the company had already frozen the possibility of filing any State. There is currently no timetable as to when the FBI will complete its investigation.
It is important to remain vigilant and protect your personal information
Whether or not TurboTax was hacked, false returns were filed using stolen information, it is important to take precautions to protect yourself. A protection service against identity theft could be useful because it will monitor the use of your personal information on the Internet black market. Some of the personal information includes your social security number and date of birth - both of which are required to file a tax return. Read our identity theft protection reviews to learn more about these services and see which will be best for you.
An additional step that Turbo Tax customers should do is to be on alert for suspicious phone calls or phishing emails attempt to extract personal information - both finished scams 1 and 2, respectively, on IRS dirty dozen list this year.
Visit our identity theft protection blog to learn more about how to protect your identity, and to follow this story and others as they unfold.