TAX IDENTITY SHIELD
Protect your refund with Tax Identity Shield®
Don’t let a thief stand in the way of your refund. If your tax identity is stolen, your refund could be affected. With H&R Block, we offer complete tax identity theft protection and restoration year-round.
Tax identity theft can happen to anyone, even you
All a thief needs to file a fraudulent return is your name, birthdate, and Social Security Number. If you’re a victim of tax identity theft, it can take several months to even years to get your refund.
We take your privacy personally
H&R Block Tax Identity Shield® helps protect you from tax identity theft, and if you ever become a tax identity theft victim, we can help with that, too. Tax Identity Shield includes:
Dark Web Identity Watch
We’ll continuously look out for your personal information where criminals buy and sell personal data.
SSN Alerts
We’ll notify you of any names or addresses associated with your Social Security number, or if your SSN is found on any tax return filed in our system.
Tax Return Notifications
We’ll update you if someone attempts to e-file a tax return using your info in our system. We’ll even prevent that fraudulent return from reaching the IRS if filed prior to the date the IRS starts to accept and process returns.
IRS Protections
We’ll help you apply for proactive IRS protections like an IRS IP PIN regardless of identity theft indicators.
Tax Identity Restoration Assistance
If you become a tax fraud victim, we offer assistance from a specially-trained agent to help recover your refund as quickly as possible.
Credit Report Access and Identity Monitoring
If you become a tax fraud victim, get one-year access to your three-bureau credit report, plus tools to restore and manage your credit and tax identity.
Frequently Asked Questions
Tax identity theft, sometimes called tax fraud, occurs when a thief uses your information to file a fraudulent tax return to steal money from the IRS. All a thief needs to file a fraudulent tax return is your name, date of birth and Social Security number, which is why tax identity management and tax fraud protection is so important.
Criminals obtain personal information in many ways. These include from a lost/stolen purse or wallet, buying it on the dark net, unsecured mail or documents in the home, phishing schemes (phone or email), data breaches, and obtaining access to personal information via banks, retailers, companies you do business with, your employer, hospitals, clinics, nursing homes, schools, government offices, etc.
It can take several months or even years to resolve the issue, resulting in significant delays in receiving your tax refund or filing the return. You may be responsible for proving that the return is fraudulent and income documents are fake. Plus, your information may be at risk for other forms of identity theft.
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