My Financial Info

Gregory J. Cook, EA, CPA+ Accredited Tax Advisor Past President Alabama Society of Enrolled Agents Past President Alabama Association of Accountants

Take Control of Your Financial Information Today


No one likes to think they may need to be taken care of someday but the truth of the matter is that many of us will need some kind of help at some point in time due to mental or physical disability. If and when that time comes for you, someone else will be taking care of your financial matters. You can make it easier for that person (your “caregiver”) by taking control of your financial information today.

Make a List for Emergencies
You can begin this process by making a list of the important information your caregiver would need to know in case of an emergency. Such a list should include the location of the following important documents: safety deposit box key; bank account information; current bills; health insurance policy; Social Security card; life insurance policy; home or property deed of sale; will; living will; power of attorney; income tax returns; and burial vault/plot receipt; as well as those friends and relatives you wish to have contacted in case of a serious emergency or death.

For convenience, you may want to give the list directly to your caregiver. Of course, you may prefer to keep it in your own possession or to give it to a trusted third party, such as an attorney or accountant. No matter what you decide to do with the list, make sure your caregiver knows where he or she can find it.

Share your Financial Information Early
Once you feel confident your caregiver can locate key documents easily, you should allow him or her to become familiar with your financial affairs. While this may seem intrusive to some, the introduction of your recordkeeping to your caregiver is vital to both of you.

Let’s face it. The amount of financial information we are required to keep track of these days can be quite overwhelming, and as time goes on and this information continues to accumulate, the task becomes that much more daunting. By sharing it with your future caregiver, he or she can gain an acute understanding of your financial affairs with your help while you can benefit from the assistance of another pair of hands as you wade through the information.

Organize Your Information Carefully
Your caregiver can also help you get organized if you do not already have a system in place. Some suggestions for managing financial information include creating a simple filing system, setting up a tickler file, or simply building a mail file for the tax preparer…

Filing System
Creating a filing system for your bills decreases the amount of time it takes to locate and match your statements to your checkbook at the end of each year. Your system can be as simple as a set of manila folders labeled from A to Z held in a large, collapsible manila file. All you need to do is file your bills under the appropriate letter. For instance, “B” for bank statements (this should include your canceled checks), “E” for electricity and “T” for telephone.

Tickler File
Setting up a “tickler file” helps to remind you when your tax deadline is approaching. As we all know, federal and state income taxes are due April 15 (with some exceptions), but for some seniors, quarterly estimated taxes are due April, June, September and January 15. So, even if you know when your taxes are due, your caregiver may not. Therefore, while the tickler system may not necessarily benefit you now, it will when your caregiver is handling your taxes. (Note: For future purposes, you may want to ask your tax preparer to begin sending a duplicate of your Declaration of Estimated Tax to your caregiver.)

Mail File
Building a file of all the mail you receive each month and sending it to your tax preparer at the end of each month (excluding personal correspondence and checks to be deposited) will ensure your tax information is being handled appropriately at tax time. Unfortunately, it will not help your caregiver become familiar with your recordkeeping. Of course, if you are uncomfortable with the thought of your caregiver being privy to your financial affairs, this would be your best option for financial organization.

Don’t Wait For Something to Happen
As hard as it may be to face the facts, we all grow old and some of us become mentally or physically incapacitated. When that time comes, are you confident that your caregiver—your wife, husband, son, daughter, grandchild—will be able to handle your financial affairs without your help?

What to do if you are a victim of Identity Theft

www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/microsites/idtheft/ - This website is a one-stop national resource to learn about the crime of identity theft. It provides detailed information to help you deter, detect, and defend against identity theft.

On this site, consumers can learn how to avoid identity theft – and learn what to do if their identity is stolen. Businesses can learn how to help their customers deal with identity theft, as well as how to prevent problems in the first place. Law enforcement can get resources and learn how to help victims of identity theft.

http://www.onguardonline.gov/topics/identity-theft.aspx - The bottom line for online threats like phishing, spyware, and hackers is identity theft. ID theft occurs when someone uses your name, Social Security number, credit card number or other personal information without your permission to commit fraud or other crimes. That's why it's important to protect your personal information. But, according to OnGuard Online, if your personal information is accidentally disclosed or deliberately stolen, taking certain steps quickly can minimize the potential for the theft of your identity.

The Internal Revenue Service has issued an increasing number of warnings over the last few years about e-mail scams targeting individuals, businesses, exempt organizations and other taxpayers. The scams, popularly known as “phishing” scams, use phony e-mails that falsely claim to come from the IRS.

What Is Phishing?

Phishing –– a word play on “fishing” for information –– is a scam in which Internet fraudsters send seemingly legitimate e-mail messages to trick unsuspecting victims into revealing personal and financial information, such as a Social Security number (SSN), that can be used to steal the victims’ identity and gain access to the victim’s finances
Alternately, the purpose of an e-mail scam may be to download malware, or malicious code, onto the recipient’s computer when the recipient opens an attachment to the e-mail or clicks on a link within the e-mail. The malware could take over the victim’s computer hard drive, giving someone remote access to the computer, or it could look for passwords and other information and send them to the scamster. There are other types of malware, as well.

The Goal of Identity Theft and Phishing

Typically, identity thieves use someone’s personal data to empty the victim’s financial accounts, run up charges on the victim’s existing credit cards, apply for new loans, credit cards, services or benefits in the victim’s name, file fraudulent tax returns or even commit crimes. Most of these fraudulent activities can be committed electronically from a remote location, including overseas. Committing these activities in cyberspace allows scamsters to act quickly and cover their tracks before the victim becomes aware of the theft.

People whose identities have been stolen can spend months or years — and their hard-earned money — cleaning up the mess thieves have made of their reputations and credit records. In the meantime, victims may lose job opportunities, may be refused loans, education, housing or cars, or even get arrested for crimes they didn't commit.

How the Scams Work

Not all of the scams are conducted through e-mail. Some are conducted by phone or fax. Additionally, identity thieves may go through trash looking for discarded tax returns, bank records, credit card receipts or other records containing personal and financial information.

Frequently, however, the scams are conducted through the Internet in the form of a phishing scheme. Typically, those that use the IRS as the bait begin with an e-mail that is sent out using the same techniques employed by “spammers.” Hundreds of thousands of messages are sent to potential victims advising them that they are under investigation by the IRS or have a refund pending from the IRS, or with some other message that sounds legitimate. Some scams attempt to capitalize on current events. To get the victim to respond, a phishing e-mail may threaten a dire consequence or dangle bait, such as a tax refund.

Often, the e-mail or an attachment asks the intended victim to click on a link to access the IRS Web site. The link connects the victim to a Web site that appears authentic and then prompts the victim for personal identifiers, bank or credit card account numbers or PINs.

The phony Web sites appear legitimate because the appearance and much of the content are directly copied from an actual page on the IRS Web site and are then modified by the phishers for their own purposes. The bogus site might look like the IRS.gov home page or may appear to be one of the pages, such as the “Where’s My Refund?” page, within the IRS.gov Web site.

Genuine IRS Web site

The only genuine IRS Web site is IRS.gov. All IRS.gov Web page addresses begin with http://www.irs.gov/. Anyone wishing to access the IRS Web site should initiate contact by typing the IRS.gov address into their Internet address window, rather than clicking on a link in an e-mail.

IRS Does Not Ask for Personal Information via e-Mail

As a rule, the IRS does not send unsolicited e-mails to taxpayers, though on occasion some taxpayers might receive newsletters or announcements of upcoming IRS-sponsored events based on their membership in professional tax organizations. However, the IRS does not send unsolicited, tax-account related e-mails to taxpayers.

For security and other reasons, the IRS never asks for personal and financial information via e-mail. Additionally, the IRS never asks people for the PIN numbers, passwords or similar secret access information for their credit card, bank or other financial accounts.

Since the IRS rarely contacts taxpayers via e-mail, and never about their tax accounts, taxpayers should be cautious about any e-mails that claim to come from the IRS.

How to Spot a Scam

Many e-mail scams are fairly sophisticated and hard to detect. However, there are signs to watch for, such as an e-mail that:

Requests personal and/or financial information, such as name, SSN, or bank or credit card account numbers, either in the e-mail itself or on another site to which a link in the e-mail sends the recipient.
Dangles bait to get the recipient to respond to the e-mail, such as mentioning a tax refund or offering to pay the recipient to participate in an IRS survey.
Threatens a consequence for not responding to the e-mail, such as blocking access to the recipient’s funds.
Gets the Internal Revenue Service name wrong.
Uses incorrect grammar or odd phrasing (many of the e-mail scams originate overseas and are written by non-native English speakers).
Uses a really long address in any link contained in the e-mail message or one that does not include the actual IRS Web site address. To see the link address, move the mouse over the link included in the text of the e-mail.
Report Scam e-Mails to the IRS

The IRS can use the information, URLs and links in the suspicious e-mails to trace the hosting Web site and alert authorities to help shut down the fraudulent sites.

Taxpayers who receive an unsolicited e-mail communication claiming to be from the IRS can forward the message to phishing@irs.gov using these instructions.

To date, the IRS has received almost 33,000 forwarded scam e-mails, reflecting more than a thousand different incidents. Investigations by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration have identified host sites in numerous countries, including Argentina, Aruba, Australia, Austria, Canada, Chile, China, England, Germany, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, Poland, Singapore and Slovakia, as well as the United States.