Mask EFINs due to recent IRS warning

[sailawayCPA]

Mask EFINs due to IRS warning of EFIN theft to allow others to file fraudulent returns. Currently EFINS show on 9979s even if masked. Is this a requirement of IRS to show on masked on unmasked returns? Mask in both versions if possible. See below:

The IRS, state tax agencies and the tax industry warned tax professionals of a new scam email that impersonates the IRS and attempts to steal Electronic Filing Identification Numbers (EFINs). The Security Summit partners said the latest scheme, arriving just before the start of the nation’s tax season, should serve as another reminder that tax professionals remain prime targets for identity thieves. These thieves try to steal client data and tax preparers’ identities that will allow them to file fraudulent tax returns for refunds.

[BobKamman]

This newfound interest from IRS in privacy and identity-theft prevention always reminds me of a seminar I attended, back around 1996, when I asked Commissioner Richardson when IRS would deliver its long-promised PTIN program so we would not have to put our SSN’s on every return we prepared.

She didn’t know what I was talking about. It would be three more years before PTIN’s were permitted.

Some of my clients have been with me since the 80s and 90s, and some of them save their returns forever. (If they ask, I tell them to throw out the receipts but keep the returns, because they don’t take up much room and on occasion they are needed for non-tax matters.) I worry about what happens with those returns when they’re gone. But it’s not just my problem. There are hundreds of thousands of practitioners, of a certain age, with their SSN’s filed away and ready to be discovered.

[sjrcpa]

I am one of those of a certain age.

[BobKamman]

@sjrcpa "I am one of those of a certain age."

Yes, I think I saw some documents from the estate of one of your clients, for sale on the Dark Web.  

[Just-Lisa-Now-]

That scam is an email scam where preparers are unwittingly giving their info away to scammers, its not about scammers taking it from client tax return copies.

[sjrcpa]

But they could very well take it from tax returns. My EFIN (along with a whole bunch of other personal data) was used twice-about 5 years apart- by people buying nonIntuit tax software. Fortunately the software companies contacted me to verify and then killed the purchase.

I don't know where the fraudsters got my data, but there are many possibilities..