Wisconsin taxpayers warned of possible identity theft after tax form misprint

Thousands of Wisconsin taxpayers may fall victim to identity theft after state tax forms were misprinted.

According to this story from USA Today and this notification posted on the state Department of Revenue’s web site, some 171,000 tax booklets were printed with the taxpayer’s Social Security number on the mailing label. Once the department learned of the error it worked with the U.S. Postal service to retrieve those booklets not already delivered. Unfortunately they were only able to stop about 54,500 - in Oshkosh, Portage and Madison. The others had already been delivered or were in the process of being so.

There are very specific people who may be affected by this printing error, says the Department of Revenue. Here are the particulars...

You may be affected if all of the following apply:

• You filed a Form 1 (long form) in 2005; and


• Your filing status in 2005 was married filing jointly

You are not affected if any of the following apply:

• You filed in 2005 on Form 1A, WI-Z, 1NPR or other forms besides the Form 1; or


• You filed in 2005 as a single person, head of household or married filing separately; or


• You filed through a professional tax preparer; or


• You filed electronically

Officials are recommending that people protect themselves against identity theft by contacting credit bureaus and asking for fraud alerts or other safeguards to keep new accounts from being opened in their names.