Beyond the headlines about Social Security cost-of-living adjustments and changes in leadership, there is an ongoing need to warn anyone with a Social Security number to be alert to identify theft. Stealing someone’s Social Security number is a gateway to financial fraud.

Be alert to these maneuvers.

Scammers are using a telephone call, text message or email in an attempt “to convince the recipient that they need to provide Social Security numbers, bank account or credit card information or passwords.” This is one of the categories highlighted in the IRS’s list of “Dirty Dozen” scams this year (tinyurl.com/2x96xsuh).

We need to “be alert for a continuing surge of fake emails, text messages, websites and social media attempts to steal personal information,” warns the IRS.

Phone scammers are even creating fake versions of ID badges that most federal employees use to access federal buildings, then texting or emailing photos of the fake badges to potential scam victims, according to the Social Security Administration’s Office of the Inspector General (tinyurl.com/5eh6s6ha).

Heed the regulators’ warnings. If you visit the Social Security website (SSA.gov), you won’t be able to miss the red banner near the top asking “What should I do if I get a call claiming there’s a problem with my Social Security number or account?”

Clicking on that area will lead you to a FAQ page (tinyurl.com/9ud4a78v) that details what the Social Security Administration (SSA) will or won’t do when it comes to phone calls. For starters: “If there is a problem, we will mail you a letter. Generally, we will only contact you if you have requested a call or have ongoing business with us.”

SSA employees “will never threaten you for information or promise a benefit in exchange for personal information or money”; and “If you receive a questionable call, hang up, and report the call to our Office of the Inspector General.” The website for reporting it is oig.ssa.gov.

Also watch out for “phishing” schemes, in which scammers use email to trick a recipient into either revealing personal information or interacting with a link or attachment that is malicious. The SSA has information for combating that tactic as well (tinyurl.com/2h7uxy58). Highlights from that page:

• “Most emails from Social Security will come from a ‘.gov’ email address. If an email address does not end in .gov, use caution before opening attachments or clicking on pictures or links in the email.”

• “Links, logos or pictures in the body of an official Social Security email will always direct you to an official Social Security website.”

• “If you are not certain that an email you received came from Social Security or one of our marketing firms, DO NOT respond to the email or click on any links contained in the email message.”

What if you receive a text from the SSA? Expect a legitimate text only in limited situations, such as if you have subscribed to receive updates and notifications by text, or as part of the security protocol when accessing a “my Social Security” account.

Signing up for the “my Social Security” account is a good idea, as the SSA believes it can help you “identify any suspicious activity.” If you haven’t signed up yet, go to ssa.gov/myaccount.

“In 2020, people filed more reports about Identity Theft (29.4% of all reports), in all its various forms, than any other type of complaint,” according to the Federal Trade Commission’s Consumer Sentinel Network Data Book 2020, released in February 2021. Government agencies continue to send out warnings about the danger.

To learn more about scams targeting Social Security accounts, go to oig.ssa.gov/scam. You also can learn more about preventing and reporting fraud at ssa.gov/fraud.

Julie Jason, JD, LLM, a personal money manager (Jackson, Grant Investment Advisers Inc. of Stamford, Connecticut) and award-winning author, welcomes your questions/comments (readers@juliejason.com). Please visit www.juliejason.com.

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If I think we’ll all agree that good communication makes for a good relationship, whether that be between financial advisers and their clients, co-workers, friends or spouses. In my experience over three decades as a money manager and one decade as an arbitrator, I can confirm that problems start with miscommunication.

Given that frame of reference, it’s always good to hear when things are going well. A new survey from Fidelity focusing on couples (tinyurl.com/4sf87k69) concluded that 71% of partners communicate at least “very well” with their other half about finances -- including 25% who say they communicate “exceptionally well.”

However, the survey, as usual with these sorts of things, found room for improvement.

Just how much should a partner know about family finances or how their partner feels about discussing financial issues? Should you know how much your partner earns? (Two out of 5 surveyed did not know.) Should you be able to discuss health and lifestyle as easily as careers and estate planning? (Couples found it easy to discuss health and lifestyle and “most difficult” to discuss careers and estate planning.)

What about the tone of your discussions? Should finances cause arguments or relationship challenges? (Forty-four percent admitted to arguing about money at least occasionally, while 18% said that money is the greatest challenge in their relationship.)

What about how you make decisions on big financial matters, such as retirement? Do you do that jointly? (Fifty-seven percent of respondents said they are joint decision-makers when it comes to retirement and other long-term financial goals.)

Do you agree on how much you need to save for retirement or when to retire? (Fifty-one percent of non-retired couples disagreed on how much savings is needed to reach retirement, and 48% disagreed on the age they were expecting to retire.)

If one of you becomes incapacitated, will you feel confident that your partner can take over? (While almost half of the respondents had complete confidence in either themselves or their partner to take over decision-making capabilities for day-to-day finances and short-term goals, when it came to taking full control of finances and strategies for retirement, only 4 in 10 felt completely confident in their or their partner’s ability to do it.)

If you are a wife, do you want to have input in planning for retirement? Twenty-two percent of women said they had little or no input with retirement planning. Considering that women tend to live longer than men -- a National Center for Health Statistics report in February 2021 (tinyurl.com/p43cchrc) found that the life expectancy for males at birth was 75.1 years in the first half of 2020; for females it was 80.5 years -- this is not good news. One of the things I encourage in my practice is that both partners be equally knowledgeable and comfortable about financing the future.

If you were lucky enough to be in a good-communicating partnership, would you expect to be content with your family’s finances? (Yes, indeed. For those couples who said they communicated well, 73% rated their household’s financial health as excellent or good, compared with 42% for couples who said they did not communicate well).

That data point is hard to ignore. From my own experience, I can tell you that there is nothing more important than open and clear communication between partners, aging parents and their adult children, and anyone who needs to interact socially, within a family or on the job.

If your communication skills need some help, there is no better time than right this second to start. Take just one step toward better communication. How? Take the initiative. Ask some of the few questions we discussed in this column. Listen to the answers.

Fidelity, one of the largest asset managers in the world, offers some additional tips at tinyurl.com/3pwu3w9b.

The 2021 version of the Fidelity Couples & Money study surveyed 1,713 couples with a minimum household income of $75,000, or at least $100,000 in investable assets.

Julie Jason, JD, LLM, a personal money manager (Jackson, Grant Investment Advisers Inc. of Stamford, Connecticut) and award-winning author, welcomes your questions/comments (readers@juliejason.com). Please visit www.juliejason.com.

DISTRIBUTED BY ANDREWS MCMEEL SYNDICATION

I’ve heard from a number of readers frustrated with their inability to get their tax refunds or economic impact payments, with attempts to contact the IRS via phone only adding to their unhappiness.

According to Erin Collins, the national taxpayer advocate, in her midyear report to Congress, the IRS received 167 million calls during the 2021 filing season -- more than four times as many calls as occurred during 2019, the “last typical filing season.”

The advocate works for TAS, the Taxpayer Advocate Service (tinyurl.com/2pn2funa). TAS was created by the Taxpayer Bill of Rights 2 in 1996 as an independent organization within the IRS. TAS’s purpose is to help taxpayers when they have problems they can’t resolve with the IRS. However, even TAS said on its website in March (tinyurl.com/32e6v8ca) that its ability to help with delayed tax refunds is “limited.”

According to Collins’ report, the IRS had a “Level of Service” on its Accounts Management telephone lines of 15%, and only 7% of taxpayer calls reached a “telephone assistor.” The numbers were even worse on the most frequently called IRS toll-free number, the “1040” line. About 85 million calls were placed, and only 3% actually reached a telephone assistor. As Collins noted, when so few calls get through, “problems remain unsolved and taxpayer frustration mounts.”

Collins’ midyear report shared important information on a number of fronts. For example, she noted the challenges the IRS had in accomplishing its tasks given the COVID-19 pandemic and the added responsibility of three rounds of stimulus payments.

At the end of the 2021 tax filing season, the IRS had a backlog of over 35 million individual and business income tax returns that required manual processing. The backlog included roughly 16.8 million paper tax returns waiting to be processed, about 15.8 million returns that were suspended during processing and required further review, and approximately 2.7 million amended returns that awaited processing.

The backlog largely was due to the pandemic, which brought social-distancing measures that kept many employees away from IRS offices.

As Collins noted: “The pandemic exposed weaknesses and vulnerabilities that must be strengthened ... and it is causing the IRS and congressional overseers to collaborate on steps to improve the IRS’s performance going forward to provide taxpayers with the service they deserve.”

The advocate recommended a number of steps for the IRS to take, among them reducing barriers for the e-filing of returns and expanding callback technology for the high-volume toll-free IRS telephone lines. My readers will be pleased when these improvements are implemented.

You can review the full list of recommendations at tinyurl.com/m7k7b4yd.

The IRS agreed to implement 48 of 73 recommendations (in full or part) made by Collins previously in her year-end report (see Appendix 1 at tinyurl.com/4k6ee66m).

If you are still waiting on the IRS in frustration, positive changes may yet come out of this pandemic-related tax turmoil.

As Collins wrote: “In the coming months, the IRS must work through its backlog of tax returns and be current in processing its correspondence while focusing on rebuilding itself to become a more efficient and taxpayer-centric organization. In the coming years, the IRS must modernize its operations to better meet taxpayer needs, reduce administrative burdens, and improve the delivery of services.”

Let’s hope next year is not as challenging at tax time as this one has been, especially for those who are financially in need.

Julie Jason, JD, LLM, a personal money manager (Jackson, Grant Investment Advisers Inc. of Stamford, Connecticut) and award-winning author, welcomes your questions/comments (readers@juliejason.com). Please visit www.juliejason.com.

DISTRIBUTED BY ANDREWS MCMEEL SYNDICATION