IRS Identity Protection PIN

The IRS is expanding the number of taxpayers who will receive an Identity Protection Pin (IP PIN) for the upcoming season. All taxpayers that have had an identity theft indicator applied to their IRS tax account will receive an IP PIN that must be included on their 2012 Federal income tax return. This means that approximately 600,000 taxpayers will receive an IRS identity theft pin for the upcoming filing season.

The affected taxpayers will receive their IP PIN in a notice (Notice CP01A) from the IRS in December 2012. This notice will include their 6-digit IP PIN and information on the use of the IP PIN.

If you know that any of your customers have been the victim of identity theft you may want to inform them that they will be receiving this notice in December. They will need to keep it and bring it in with the rest of their tax information when they come to have their 2012 income tax return prepared.

Other changes to the IRS IP PIN program that you need to know:

• If the taxpayer was issued an IP PIN they must include it and have it entered correctly on their 2012 Federal return or the IRS will reject their return. The inclusion of the IP PIN will allow the return to be processed normally and will not delay their refund.
• If the taxpayer loses the notice that includes their IP PIN they can call the IRS Help Desk. Once they have authenticated who they are, they will be issued with a replacement
  IP PIN.