How to Send Tax Documents Securely and Safely: Full Guide

Knowing how to send tax documents securely is a must if you want to protect your personal and tax information from tax fraud, identity theft, and other similar forms of scams.

Tax documents contain a taxpayer’s or business’s full name, Social Security Number (SSN), Employer Identification Number (EIN), contact information, residential or business address, wages, and taxes.

As such, when scammers gain access to any of the following sensitive details, it puts unsuspecting taxpayers at risk of losing their identity, hard-earned money, and even facing penalties for their involuntary involvement with fraudulent activities.

Key Takeaways

• Expanding your knowledge on how to send tax documents securely helps you stay updated and protected from the different types of identity theft and tax fraud.
• Some of the most surefire ways to secure tax documents against fraud attempts include using email encryption, a secure portal, online generators, or a password manager.
• The FTC recently reported that there are different types of identity theft, namely financial, medical, criminal, social, child, synthetic, and child identity theft.
• Other effective ways to safely send tax documents involve mailing or hand-delivering them, updating employee records, creating backup copies, and researching the different tax scams and myths.

How to Securely Send Tax Documents: 4 Effective Ways

There are four proven ways to send tax documents securely. These methods are quite simple and familiar. As such, it is all the more essential to know and understand how you can add an extra layer of security to these simple countermeasures.

Let’s explore each of these methods in detail:

#1. Use Encrypted Email

One of the most basic ways to securely send tax documents via email involves encrypting email messages. When an email is encrypted, it means that all readable text within the email is disguised or converted into an indecipherable and impenetrable format.

To do this, you must use what experts call a Public Key Infrastructure (PKI), which is composed of both a public and private key. The public key is used by email senders to encrypt the message and documents attached to the email.

Meanwhile, recipients use the private key to decrypt the email into a readable or understandable format. Private keys can be unique to the recipient to ensure hackers cannot easily detect any Personally Identifiable Information (PII) and any other sensitive data included in the email.

Fortunately, there are several email encryption software providers currently available on the market. Not to mention, most email service providers, such as Gmail and Outlook, enable users to keep their emails secure at all times.

#2. Use a Secure Portal

A secure portal may be in the form of a payroll or HR portal that employers use for payroll processing purposes and storing employee and company records virtually.

Paper-based documents are prone to getting misplaced and stolen. At the same time, printed tax forms and records are also susceptible to physical damage caused by fire, flooding, and other natural calamities.

A reliable and secure payroll portal lets employers send tax documents securely and distribute electronic or paperless pay stubs every pay period seamlessly.

Typically, employers provide their staff with a username and password, which the latter can change later on to ensure confidentiality for all essential data about employees’ employment, wages, salaries, benefits, and taxes.

The restricted access to the company’s payroll portal or software of choice also limits access to sensitive business and worker information to employees and authorized individualsin the company only.

#3. Use an Online Generator

Online generators, whether in the form of a W-2 form generator, a pay stub generator, or a 1099 form generator, let employers, employees, and independent contractors come in handy when the need to send tax documents securely arises.

Paystub.org’s generator for Wage and Tax Statements and 1099 forms uses a template that’s similar to the actual IRS forms. As such, taxpayers get to organize their annual income and tax information and prepare their tax forms in just a few minutes.

They can also take advantage of the built-in calculator to ensure they calculate their wages, salaries, and taxes correctly. More importantly, users can prepare as many copies as they want and have the option of downloading and saving an electronic copy or printing their tax documents.

Both features are highly cost-effective for employees expecting multiple W-2 forms from different employers or freelancers who want to estimate their taxable income and taxes due in advance.

It is also worth noting that Paystub.org adheres to all existing federal and state payroll regulations and pay stub requirements, thereby ensuring protection and privacy for users at all times.

#4. Use IRS-Authorized Online Tax Preparers

The Internal Revenue Service enables taxpayers to use their Free File program, which is a partnership between the IRS and companies offering tax filing services and software tools to individuals and businesses.

The said program makes it easier and more convenient for taxpayers to file their returns on time without the need to spend an excessive amount of money and resources.

The IRS has a list of eight trusted partners who offer safe online tax preparation solutions, thereby preventing scammers from stealing taxpayers’ financial and personal information without their knowledge.

For businesses and individuals who are having trouble choosing an authorized tax preparer that suits their needs, they can use Find Your Trusted Partner(s) tool to help them narrow down their Free File partner options.

The Importance of Sending Tax Documents Securely

The importance of sending tax documents securely lies in ensuring employees and businesses remain protected from potential tax fraud, identity theft, criminal impersonation, and significant financial loss.

Understanding how to send financial documents securely has become more crucial at present. All the available tools and technology online, while convenient, also enable scammers to effortlessly steal personal and tax information from unknowing taxpayers.

To prove that point, let’s take a quick look at some of the most recent reports on scams and crimes involving identity theft and compromising tax information:

Tax Fraud and Identity Theft Cases in the US

In 2021, the United States Sentencing Commission’s summary of quick facts on tax fraud offenses cited that approximately 11.1% of sentences on tax-related scams addressed the execution of sophisticated methods to conceal fraudulent tax processes.

Meanwhile, 7.1% of the sentences focused on fraudsters playing a leadership role in carrying out the said scam, and 4.3% penalized the deliberate obstruction of the administration of justice.

In addition, the Federal Trade Commission’s 2024 statistics on identity theft show that identity theft cases have roughly tripled over the last ten years.

Alarmingly, the FTC also found that there is currently an expanded classification of identity theft, making it unsurprising that an individual’s identification can be stolen every 22 seconds.

To top it all off, around 34% of identity theft victims were aware of who stole their identity. Of the reported 34%, 26% said that the identity thief turned out to be a relative or a family member.

On the other hand, 23% revealed that the culprit worked at a financial institution or an organization that had access to their personal records.

Now, circling back to how sending tax documents securely plays a role in preventing the aforementioned fraud cases, it simply boils down to how business owners and workers alike should be responsible enough when processing their returns.

Securing financial and tax documents acts as the first line of defense against cyber threats and financial scams. Every year, employers and regular taxpayers have to send tax documents to the IRS to report their annual income and file their taxes.

As such, there is no excuse for remaining oblivious to the possible risks coupled with filing taxes or preparing all essential employee forms and information.

5 Tips & Best Practices for Sending Your Tax Documents Securely

Combining the following tips and best practices for sending tax documents securely with any of the four methods explained earlier strengthens your defense against any fraudulent attempts to steal your sensitive data.

#1. Consider Mailing Your Tax Documents

A practical way to send tax documents securely involves knowing how to mail tax documents through the post office as opposed to utilizing an email service provider. While using regular mail to send tax documents may take longer for the forms to reach the intended recipient, it is also less susceptible to data breaches.

After all, cyber scammers have no way of detecting or intercepting documents and tax information prepared or printed on paper. To ensure full security of your tax forms, consider mailing your returns using the U.S. Postal Service (USPS).

The USPS provides you with consistent updates to help you verify that your documents have been mailed and successfully received by the IRS.

On the other hand, hand-delivering or personally sending tax documents to your accountant, HR, or payroll staff will save you unnecessary hassle, as you can personally see to it that your company and employees’ tax documents are secure.

In this case, you also don’t need to make the necessary preparations to encrypt an email or mail tax forms.

#2. Organize and Store All Your Documents

Proper storage and organization of your financial documents and tax records can keep your files from getting misplaced, stolen, or tampered with. It will also come in handy when you need to backtrack returns filed during the previous year.

Depending on whether you use paper-based or electronic files, you can use durable office cabinets with a lock and key or passcode combination or cloud storage to secure your documents.

Make it a point to limit who can access your files by refraining from sharing the passcode to open your documents.

For instance, if you use Google Drive to save your company files, you can share your documents with employees only by adding their updated work email to the email group Cc-ed in the files.

Better yet, prepare backup copies of all your company’s and employees’ files in case your company gets targeted by a deliberate cyberattack.

#3. Update Employee Records

Employers shoulder the responsibility of protecting their employees from identity theft and other similar types of fraud.

One way they do this is by updating employee records. This can either be in the form of having employees verify their W-4 form information or double-checking that their mailing and email addresses are both correct and still in use.

At times, workers fail to update their mailing address at the earliest possible date, and once their employer sends their tax documents, their tax forms end up with the wrong individual. Ensuring the correctness of their personal information keeps their paycheck records from ending up in the wrong hands.

In some instances, an employee may be requesting copies of their pay stubs to use as proof of income for a mortgage. Or, they may be interested in assessing their eligibility for certain types of loans.

That said, verifying that each employee’s tax and income details are up-to-date also proves instrumental in helping employees prove their finances and identity to banks, lenders, and financial institutions.

#4. Learn How to Recognize Scams

It is not enough to know how to send tax documents securely. You must also stay well-informed about the different types of scams and methods that fraudsters often use.

The Internal Revenue Service, United States Sentencing Commission, and Federal Trade Commission are among the many reliable resources you can check for all relevant updates on tax regulations and statistics on tax fraud and related cybercrimes.

If you have employees, you must also take it upon yourself to distribute reader-friendly and informative guides on how they can distinguish and avoid tax scams and identity theft.

#5. Stay Informed About Tax Myths

Speaking of scams, educating oneself about the different tax myths will also keep you from falling for fraudsters pretending to be someone from the IRS.

For instance, a common tax myth that unsuspecting taxpayers often fall for is that the IRS will contact you via phone about your tax returns. In reality, the IRS never calls taxpayers in case there are discrepancies on their returns.

Instead, if you are expecting a notification or update from the IRS, you’ll know that it’s authentic if you receive one via mail.

Another tax myth you should debunk to ensure you send tax documents securely is the assumption that it is normal for reliable tax preparers to charge hefty fees. More often than not, a tax preparer who charges expensive rates for their services turns out to be a scammer.

Final Thoughts

Having a sufficient background on how to send tax documents securely and knowing how to put the said knowledge into practice effectively keeps scammers and identity thieves at bay.

Whether you’re an employer, an employee, a freelancer, or a non-employee taxpayer, securing your tax and financial records should always be a priority.

You can also come back to this article for guidance or check out our blog for more insightful articles on all things taxes and the essential IRS forms needed to fulfill your tax obligations.

How to Send Tax Documents Securely FAQ

#1. Is it safe to send tax documents over email?

Yes, it is safe to send tax documents over email, as long as you use 2-factor authentication or encrypt the email messages that contain your or your recipient’s tax information.

Otherwise, sending tax documents via unencrypted email makes your tax details susceptible to cyber or data hacking attempts.

#2. Is it safe to send a 1099 via email?

It can be safe to send a 1099 form via email for as long as you implement the necessary security measures, similarly to sending other tax documents. In reality, the IRS does not recommend sending 1099 forms via email due to the potential risks associated with it.

This is why the Internal Revenue Service typically sends important notices to taxpayers via regular mail.

#3. What should I do if I think someone accessed my tax information?

If you think that someone may have accessed your tax information, check the IRS’ guide to identity theft to confirm your suspicions.

Once you’ve confirmed that your tax information or any other personally identifiable information has been stolen, contact the Federal Trade Commission by dialing 1-877-438-4338 or reach out to them online by visiting IdentityTheft.gov.

#4. How safe is Google Drive for saving and sending confidential tax documents?

Google Drive is safe for saving and sending confidential tax documents. Users have options to limit who can access their documents and files.

At the same time, Google Drive ensures user safety and protection from potential data breaches and other forms of cyberattacks at all times.

#5. What is the safest way to save financial documents online?

The safest way to save financial documents online is to encrypt all of your digital data or records. Encrypting all of your essential information means limiting who can access your data to authorized personnel only.