Safety Tips for Tax Preparation Online

In 2008, the IRS electronic system received almost 90 million tax returns . Filing tax returns over the Internet is simple and could spare some extra time and money that taxpayers would otherwise use for toiling intricate tax forms.

Still, without paying a close attention to the way a user manipulates his or her sensitive data over the World Wide Web, chances are to become the victim of an identity theft or have a third party filing tax returns or collecting refunds on the taxpayer behalf.

Users should beware in the first place of frauds and scams they receive via e-mail . Spam campaigns and phishing raids promising to eliminate tax debt, help the taxpayer with filing taxes for free or advertising some extremely cheap services from tax preparation companies are nothing more than trouble. Instead of saving a few bucks, users might get tricked into revealing their name, address, social security number, as well as the value of their income and their credit card details (for payment options) to cybercriminals.

But spam and phishing schemes are not the only e-threats to be aware of. Trojan, spyware, adware, keyloggers and passwords stealers, botnets and other types of malware are to be feared as well. For instance, disguised as a Mozilla