IR-2025-88: Security Summit: IRS reminds tax pros to guard against identity theft as summer series wraps up


Issue Number: IR-2025-88

Inside This Issue

Security Summit: IRS reminds tax pros to guard against identity theft as summer series wraps up

Week 5 of “Protect Your Clients; Protect Yourself” offers tax pros tools and advice to help protect important data.

WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service and the Security Summit partners are closing out the fifth and final week of the “Protect Your Clients; Protect Yourself” awareness series by reminding tax professionals to stay vigilant and strengthen safeguards to protect against identity theft. In the first half of the year there were nearly 300 data breaches reported impacting as many as 250,000 clients.

The Security Summit – a public-private partnership of tax professionals, industry partners, state tax agencies and the IRS – has worked since 2015 to protect the tax system from identity theft and fraud. Tax pros can find the full series at IRS.gov.
This summer’s special awareness campaign coincides with the IRS Nationwide Tax Forum, being held in five cities this summer across the U.S. In addition to the series of five news releases, the tax professional security component will be featured at the forums, which are three-day continuing education events. The Orlando event begins today, and space remains for the Sept. 9-11 event in Baltimore. The Sept. 16-18 event in San Diego is sold out.

Ongoing threats

Identity thieves constantly adapt their tactics, and attacks on tax professionals remain frequent.

Common schemes include:

Know the warning signs

Tax pros should watch for red flags from clients such as:

  • IRS Online Account created or accessed without consent.
  • Unrequested tax transcripts.
  • Incorrect IRS balance-due statements notices.
  • Refunds without filing a tax return.

Business warning signs include:

  • Unusual computer activity, slow performance or being locked out of systems.
  • Returns rejected because a Social Security number was already used.
  • Receiving unexpected IRS authentication letters or e-filed acknowledgments.
  • IRS notifications involving unrepresented clients or a compromised CAF number.

Prevention tools

The IRS offers tools to help tax pros to “Protect Your Clients; Protect Yourself.”

Beat bad actors: Report data theft immediately

If a breach occurs:

Stay informed