Via Taxprof, Krebs on Security says in Sign Up at irs.gov Before Crooks Do It For You:
If you’re an American and haven’t yet created an account at irs.gov, you may want to take care of that before tax fraudsters create an account in your name and steal your personal and tax data in the process.
I left a comment at Taxprof, and repeat it here:
Getting registered is indeed a good idea. I did it at:
http://www.irs.gov/Individuals/Get-Transcript
What you do is start ordering a transcript. You'll first be registered, after answering some questions. You put in your name and a few things, and they'll send you an email code that will last 15 minutes. This took a while. First, their email took 40 minutes to arrive, and so was dead on arrival. Next, it took perhaps 10 minutes, but I wasn't watching my email carefully, so it died too. Next, it took 30 seconds, so I succeeded. After that, you'll answer some hard questions such as what year you bought your house and signed up for credit cards. I don't know if I answered correctly or not. It's multiple choice. I seemed to get registered, though. Then I logged out, rather than ordering a transcript.
I should have my wife do this too. I wonder whether children's accounts and trusts need to do this? If they are due for refunds, I suppose so.
Actually, another aspect of this is that it might be interesting to steal politicians' tax returns this way. I suppose one could legally publish them then, and be punished only if it could be proven that you stole them, which would be difficult. Harry Reid's tax returns would be interesting.