Good Financial Reads: Data Security and Best Practices

While security breaches are nothing new, the tactics hackers use to access personal information are always changing. In the last decade alone, big names like Facebook-owned WhatsApp, Uber, Home Depot, Yahoo!, Marriott  — and even credit reporting agency Equifax — have fallen victim!

But online data security is only one half of the story, and with so much emphasis placed on keeping yourself safe on the web, it can be easy to forget about the importance of physical data security.

So we are here today to talk about identify theft. It is near and dear to our hearts because we have both recently gone through something similar to this. 

So at the end of 2019 as I was wrapping up our budget getting ready for 2020, I noticed that right around Christmas I had right around 6500 in fraudulent charges to Nordstrom.

[Watch the Video] 

If you ask this question online, you’re going to receive a litany of web articles, many from banks and insurance companies, some from the IRS.  I noted recently that they all basically say the same thing, so I’ll certainly pass along the following:

• Keep tax records for 3 years (the IRS reserves the right to inspect any of your tax returns within that period)
• Unless you understated your income by more than 25 percent, in which case keep them for 6 years…
• Unless you filed a fraudulent return, in which case keep the records forever (isn’t understating your income by 25% kind of fraudulent?)
• The IRS requires that you keep any records related to unfiled tax returns forever. (Friendly recommendation:  File the returns.  Don’t commit tax fraud or understate income.  Now you’re back to the three year rule!)