Recently my family’s personal information was compromised. The culprit wasn’t a phishing scam like a Nigerian prince emailing me with the promise of lots of money. Our information fell into the hands of criminals via the IRS by filing a fraudulent tax return using one of our Social Security numbers.

Identity theft professionals told us the IRS is aware of this worsening issue, but have implemented few safeguards to mitigate the problem. The IRS admits there was a 66 percent increase in identity theft investigations between 2012 and 2013. Yet they’ve done nothing proactive to prevent these offenses.