(Casper, WY) -- Tax filing season is here and that can mean
lots of questions from tax filers. Sandy Sowder of Liberty Tax Service in
Casper (pictured above), addressed the Senior-Wise group at the Casper Senior Center recently to
answer questions some of those questions.
One of the first questions she addressed concerned the
safety feature involved in filing an income tax return annually. "If your
sole source of income is Social Security and you have no other form of income
you may still want to file your tax return each year," she recommended.
"You can do it as an information filing to make sure that your Social
Security number is not being used by anyone else in the IRS system." She
said Liberty Tax Service will do a free information filing just on your Social Security
income. "It's a good idea to bounce that off the IRS each year," she
said, "to make sure your Social Security number is not being used in their
system for any other purpose." She pointed out that Social Security fraud
can also catch up with seniors from a medical standpoint at the hospital,
because in the hospital's record system you are also your SS number. "If
someone checks into a hospital using your Social Security number then a medical
profile starts to build that doesn't belong to you," she cautioned. "It
can be very difficult and very expensive to get your identity back."
Tax forms like W-2 and 1099 should already been in your
possession. "They don't have to be delivered by the end of the January but
they must be postmarked by the end of January," she said. But she also
noted it's the tax filer's responsibility to make sure these employers have a
current address. This is easy one to forget if you use direct deposit, she
said, because your address can change while your bank account number did not.
If you plan to do your own taxes there are some valuable resources
to consult. She recommended checking the irs.gov website as a useful and user
friendly resource. She said there's more security and safety filing your taxes with
a professional firm, since franchises like Liberty Tax are required to follow
even tougher regulations that what the IRS requires. She also said it's more
difficult now to obtain paper copies of tax documents. "Almost all tax
information is being directed by the government to irs.gov," she said,
"but you can still order the paper forms for free from irs.gov and they'll
be mailed to you."
Senior-Wise is held Tuesdays at 12:30 at the Casper Senior
Center, 1831 East 4th Street, Casper, WY.
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