WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service and Security Summit partners urged taxpayers to take immediate steps to protect their personal data to strengthen expanded efforts being taken this upcoming tax season by federal, state and tax industry leaders against identity theft and refund fraud.

The Security Summit, an unprecedented collaborative effort between the IRS, the states and the nation's tax industry, announced in November plans to improve identity theft and refund fraud protections for individual and business taxpayers for the 2017 filing season.

WASHINGTON ― The Internal Revenue Service announced today that the nation’s tax season will begin Monday, Jan. 23, 2017, and reminded taxpayers claiming certain tax credits to expect a longer wait for refunds.

The IRS will begin accepting electronic tax returns that day, with more than 153 million individual tax returns expected to be filed in 2017. The IRS again expects more than four out of five tax returns will be prepared electronically using tax return preparation software.

WASHINGTON — As tax season approaches, the Internal Revenue Service, the states and the tax industry reminded taxpayers to be on the lookout for an array of evolving tax scams related to identity theft and refund fraud.

Every tax season, there is an increase in schemes that target innocent taxpayers by email, by phone and on-line. The IRS and Security Summit partners remind taxpayers and tax professionals to be on the lookout for these deceptive schemes.