Tax Return Basics: What You must know!

Tax ID Theft

Three things in life are guaranteed: death, taxes and tax-related identity theft. Michael Kasper would agree. Someone registered Kasper's IRS.gov account, requested the document for his 2013 tax return, then filed a 2014 tax return.

The crook used a middleman—an innocent woman who answered his Craigslist ad for a moneymaking opportunity. He sent the money to her bank account, then she wired it to Nigeria, not knowing she was helping the crook.

Kasper's account got busted into when the crook guessed some information about him, maybe stuff he got off of social media. Go to IRS.gov to secure your account to make it nearly unhackable.

Get Your Tax Transcripts

You can request information via online about your tax returns and transactions for a given year. If you're not registered yet, you'll need your Social Security number and instant access to your e-mail account. The step after that is to answer private questions to confirm your identity. Otherwise just log in with your password and user ID.

To receive the information by snail mail, you'll need your SSN or individual tax ID number, address from your latest tax return, plus birthdate.

Suspiciously Filed Returns

The IRS has been contacting people who are associated with suspiciously filed returns, requesting that they confirm their identity. This is the result of criminals using TurboTax to process returns. The IRS will always make such a request with snail mail, never a phone call, text or e-mail.

If you get in the mail a Letter 5071C from the IRS, there's only two ways to confirm you are you: 1) Visit idverifty.irs.gov and answer some questions, or call the 800 number on the letter itself.

For this verification process, you should have on hand your previous year tax return, the current one, and any supporting paperwork like Forms 1099 and W-2. You'll then need to verify you filed the suspect return.

And remember, if you're on this list and the IRS wants to contact you, it will be by snail mail. Anything else is a scam.