In July, the IRS issued the final rules allowing most payee statements issued either in paper or electronically to use a truncated Social Security Number or Employer Identification Number. So, it would be XXX-XX-1234, or ***-**-1234. The issuer’s TIN can’t be truncated and no truncation is allowed on the forms that go to the IRS – only to the payees. And, because of statutory wording, no truncated TIN on a Form W-2, something that about 85% of individual filers receive.
So, this is a good step among many in trying to reduce the ease of identity thieves obtaining your tax ID number. But it is not enough. Consider the following:
• Unlike truncating on receipts for credit or debit card purchases, truncating tax IDs on payee statements is optional, not mandatory.
• Experts estimate that the easiest numbers of your SSN to figure out are the first 5, not the last 4.
• It does nothing about the trillions of documents of all sorts that exist that have people’s SSNs on them. People save old W-2s and tax returns (even those more than four years old), employment papers, etc. Often, these get tossed without removing the SSNs.
What more do you suggest? What do you think?
Original Post By: Annette Nellen
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