Why it's best not to wait to file your taxes

Getting a refund quickly is not the only upside of filing early. It can also protect you against criminals who file a phony return using your stolen Social Security number to collect your refund. The good news, the IRS tells us, is that the number of victims of identity theft on tax returns has fallen by about 2/3 since 2015 due to improved security. But there are growing concerns that data breaches since then could cause a spike in ID theft. After all there were 143 million people in the Equifax breach that were affected last year.