The full story is available here [may be paywalled]. The gist is that cybercriminals are sending e-mails posing as the United States Postal Service saying that you missed a delivery. You didn’t. But clicking the “linked invoice” which you are then supposed to present at your local post office takes you to a ZIP file… Read More
That’s me in super sneaky spy mode. At the end of the day yesterday I was mailing some paperwork to a couple of clients (yes, we still do that here, especially for clients with limited internet access). I had to create mailing labels for the envelopes. We have a dedicated label printer to help with… Read More
This one is mainly for all my new friends in Facebook’s Tax 101 group (especially the people who are new to flying solo). Still, it is good advice for most business owners and just regular people too although not all of it may apply to your particular situation. Change your passwords annually. Change the login… Read More
The Tax Girl (Kelly Phillips Erb) has an excellent post called 12 Questions to Ask When Choosing a Tax Preparer. It’s a great post, especially if you have actually narrowed the list of possibles to a few probably qualified candidates. My list of 5 questions overlaps some with hers, but is geared more toward finding that short… Read More
In an earlier post I discussed the various types of paid tax professionals and at the end I mentioned that, at an absolute minimum, your preparer needs to hold a valid preparer tax identification number (or PTIN). Ghost preparers are paid preparers who do not hold PTINs. They are often (but not always) small, independent, tax season… Read More
Well, what are you paying for when you hire me to prepare your tax return? You are paying for my time, my education (at least 30 hours of tax education every year), and my experience. When you hire me, you will get a thorough review of your situation and your return—not simply data entry.… Read More
Can I? Sure. Will I? The main reason we will not e-mail you copies of your tax return (or any other sensitive tax information) is that it is illegal for us to do so unless the e-mail is encrypted. Not password protected…encrypted. I’ll be the first to admit I am not an information security expert,… Read More
This post brought to you by someone on my FaceBook tax forums and by National Tax Security Awareness Week (December 3-7, 2018). This happened back in 2016 but unfortunately stuff like this still goes on today. Said person was seen complaining that his tax software provider (also my tax software provider) was no longer supporting,… Read More