The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) always encourage us to be vigilant in regards to our identity, but at “tax time” they have asked us to take extra care in protecting ourselves.

The National Tax Accountants’ Association recently reported that there were 32,110 cases of identity theft reported to the ATO during the 2014/15 year, and 22,000 of these occurred during peak tax season!

Following this, the ATO have provided some everyday precautions we can all take to protect ourselves, these include:

• Put a padlock on your letterbox
• Before throwing away documents containing personal details (especially your Tax File Number), shred them
• Ensure passwords are strong, changed regularly and don’t share them with anyone
• Install a legitimate and up to date anti-virus software and firewall on your electronic devices

I also urge you to protect your identity and would like to remind you that the ATO will NEVER call you threatening legal action if you don’t pay a debt immediately…they simply don’t operate in that manner.

Take care

Regards