3 year old's identity stolen

[Stachetastic]

I received a call late yesterday from our accountant stating our tax return was rejected due to our son's SSN having already been used. She advised us to call the IRS to confirm this, and I am currently waiting for business hours to make the call. The accountant has already prepared an affidavit to submit to the IRS, and will be submitting our taxes in paper form. What else should we be doing? Should I run a credit report for him? Contact the credit bureaus?

[green daisy]

Is it possible that someone made a typo on their return and accidentally used your son's SSN?

[Gray Matter]

We had this happen to us last year.  When we want to file our taxes, we were told a tax return had already been filed under our social security numbers.  It's unfortunately quite common.  There are a number of steps you need to take, including filing a police report, a report with the FTC, the IRS, etc.  Kind of a pain the butt, but pretty straight forward.  The IRS has 180 days to investigate and release your return to you (if you have one).

The steps are well laid out here.

https://www.irs.gov/uac/Taxpayer-Guide-to-Identity-Theft

Sorry this happened to you!

[Stachetastic]

Is it possible that someone made a typo on their return and accidentally used your son's SSN?

I suppose anything's possible, but our accountant is moving forward as if it's identity theft.

We had this happen to us last year.  When we want to file our taxes, we were told a tax return had already been filed under our social security numbers.  It's unfortunately quite common.  There are a number of steps you need to take, including filing a police report, a report with the FTC, the IRS, etc.  Kind of a pain the butt, but pretty straight forward.  The IRS has 180 days to investigate and release your return to you (if you have one).

The steps are well laid out here.

https://www.irs.gov/uac/Taxpayer-Guide-to-Identity-Theft

Sorry this happened to you!

Thank you! I was just reviewing this site--looks like our accountant is on top of things from her end. I'm just wondering if I should be running his credit report, or requesting a credit freeze? Not sure how much (if any) damage has been done.

[Gray Matter]

I would do both--request a credit report AND put a freeze on his credit.  We put a 90-day fraud alert on ours, because our credit is active, but a 3-year-old is unlikely to need credit, so I'd probably freeze it.