[masraum]

Originally Posted by john70t

Just my opinion but unless a secure connection is guaranteed, such as logging in directly at a local IRS hub, the bad guys are still out there.
Paper is better verification.

$4M was accumulated by only these two guys:
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/mississippi/articles/2017-04-21/2-mississippi-men-sentenced-for-filing-false-tax-returns.

Those two guys worked as tax preparers and put bogus info on tax returns to get clients extra money on returns or reduce tax liability. That's got NOTHING to do with whether your taxes are filed via the 'Net.

According to court documents and proceedings, Washington was a tax return preparer who owned and operated Flash Financial, and Brice was Washington’s sole employee. From 2009 through 2011, the two men filed fraudulent tax returns for multiple clients with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) that included bogus education expenses and retirement contributions, which they never discussed with their clients. As a result, the clients received refunds they were not entitled to.

I do know that there are lots and lots and lots of folks out there that will file many fraudulent tax returns under the names and SSN of other people to get returns. I believe that 99.9% of the time, that also has nothing to do with someone filing via the 'Net.

You can file on secure sites like Turbo Tax and various other tax sites. Those sites are potentially insecure if they have a bug or aren't up to current code or weren't smartly planned out. I suspect Intuit's site is pretty secure, and they probably don't hold any or much customer info other than to allow it to pass through their network.

To get data from someone filing via the 'Net, you'd pretty much have to hack either the person's computer or the server at the remote end or have physical access to the path between the two.

In the grand scheme of things, filing via the 'Net is, I believe, not as risky as using a credit or debit card to purchase things anywhere in the world.