IRS Moves to Protect Business Information From Identity Theft

The IRS will start concealing sensitive data on business tax transcripts as part of an effort to protect taxpayers from identity theft.

Tax professionals often use these transcripts, which summarize tax returns, to prepare prior year returns or represent clients, and lenders may use them to verify income. The Friday announcement gives stakeholders 30 days to make any adjustments before the change will go into effect.

• The new tax transcripts will leave some partial information visible, such as the last four digits of any Employee Identification Number, Social Security number, and account or telephone number.
• The new transcripts ...