In the next few months as the current year comes to a close many people like to sort through all of their documentation, and get it in order so they can get their taxes done early in the new year. Often this means getting rid of a lot of unnecessary documentation. It is really important when doing this that one keeps in mind that there is a risk for identity theft, if this documentation has personal information on it and it is not being disposed of properly.
Anyone can buy compact shredders at a very reasonable price at the local business stores, and this is a great way to dispose of any documentation.
You also have to be very careful about any inquiries that come your way regarding your personal information. The most common of these may be with the CRA. There are a lot of scams going about that are attempting to gather personal information about taxpayers. These scam artists then use this information for their own use. It is highly important that you know how the CRA will contact you and what information they will ask for.
Also make sure that you do due diligence with keeping up your address as being current with all the government departments and agencies.
It is also soon going to be the time of year where you are going to want to choose your tax preparer. Ideally you will want to use a an established accountant for this purpose. What you want to do is to check the references of your tax preparer to make sure that they are valid as you will be giving a lot of personal information to them.
You are probably getting a lot of calls from various charity organizations. Before offering to support these entities you really should check out the CRA website to see which of these are registered, and it’s also way you can get more information about the organization.
Your social insurance number is a very important document and is not one that you should use lightly as ID.
You also have to be concerned about the Internet and what information you are putting on various sites.
It is most important that you don’t adopt the attitude that becoming a victim of identity theft is something that could never happen to you. It is becoming far more wide spread and this means that everybody must be far more vigilant about protecting their personal information.
