One of the perils of living in Canada is that every April I get confused. April 15 is tax day in the US, and for some reason that date is burned in my brain. (And on my digital calendars, because they won’t let me delete dates, even if they don’t apply to me.) But the deadline in Canada? I can never remember if it’s the beginning of April or the end. I’m going to go out on a limb and guess hope it’s the end, because otherwise I’m hooped.
(Okay, I checked. It’s April 30. Whew.)
Anyway, this year I’ve got a bunch of freelance and blog-related income (yay). Except I very carefully kept the receipts and income info and then when we moved I forgot where I put it all (boo). I fear the more recent pieces are in the pile of receipts my husband has “filed” on the little desk in our kitchen.
I’ve been thinking about this lately, because one of the questions that came up as part of being a kIDSure ambassador was, “What do you do to keep your finance-related mail, Social Security number, and tax forms away from prying eyes and out of the wrong hands?”
Um, file them in piles of miscellaneous (and crumpled) receipts? Surely if I can’t find them thieves won’t be able to either. Right?
As I mentioned in my last post on this topic, I’m not good at this stuff. (Clearly.) I mean, it’s not like I use personal paperwork for scrap paper and I’ve always had taxes dealt with by people I know and trust, but I think I could use a little help in the secure filing department.
Since I'm Canadian I don't actually have a social security number, but I figured if I told you I had a SIN you'd be all, "huh?"
What’s kind of ironic is that a few months ago my blog was hacked and I immediately signed up (and paid) for a screening service that detects all the stealth stuff hackers do to get into blogs. It gives me a detailed log of the scans, most of which means nothing to me except for some reassurance that things are okay. And I’m not even sure what I’m worried about. I don’t want my blog hacked, of course, and I really wouldn’t like it redirected to something iffy, as has happened to some bloggers I know. I am a little worried that by getting into my blog hackers can get into more of my life. Does it work that way? I don’t really know, but that’s why I like someone who does know about this stuff looking for signs of forced entry.
Anyway, the service behind this identity-theft ambassador program is Identity Guard® and I’ve included some information on that below, which I can definitely see being useful to prevent tax-time identity theft.
Do you use a service like that? I’d love to hear about your experience.
Identity Guard® has been around for more than a decade, using technological solutions to protect people from the threat of identity theft. At the first sign of certain kinds of activity involving your personal information you get an alert. As mentioned in my last post, there’s also comprehensive child ID theft protection now available in kID Sure℠. We all know there are countless online threats, but IDENTITY GUARD helps keep you and you family safe. Get Identity Guard the information about identity theft and how to help prevent it. If you’d like more info, you can download three free e-books.
And yep, I do receive compensation for being part of this program but the awareness is worth a lot to me too.
