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TurboTax Got Hacked Because of Course They Did

In the 21st century there are three things that you just have to deal with:

  1. You don’t have any privacy.
  2. Your personal information is going to get hacked, and
  3. Dick pics are a thing.

Ergo, TurboTax getting hacked: not a big deal.

A high school student hacking into the DoD’s Defense Threat Redundancy Agency: that was a big deal.1  JPMorgan Chase getting hacked, compromising the accounts of 76 million households and seven million small businesses: that was a big deal. Christopher Chaney hacking nude selfies off Scarlett Johansson’s iPhone: that was a big deal.

TurboTax getting hacked: not a big deal.

TurboTax got hacked because of course it did. All the information on your old TurboTax-filed tax returns (which Intuit keeps on file) makes bad guys’ jobs really easy when they get the itch to do some fraudulent tax return filing.

So yeah, if a 15-year-old was motivated to hack the DoD simply for all the resulting shitting and giggling, then a team of Russian cybercriminals was bound to hack TurboTax for all the resulting money.

However, Brad Smith, Intuit’s CEO, is adamant that TurboTax did not get hacked.2 Rather, Smitty says the bad guys just used TurboTax to file fraudulent returns. And last week he sent a letter to the IRS urging them to address “the growing tax refund fraud problem that threatens the integrity of the U.S. tax system.” Because the best way to take responsibility for your part in a problem that threatens the integrity of one of your country’s most important systems is to tell other people to take responsibility for their part in the problem that threatens the integrity of one of your country's most important systems.

Also, there are worse things than someone filing a false tax return using your stolen identity.3 You’ll still get your refund. Eventually. It’s a pain in the ass, and it will take four months to resolve, but you’ll get your money. Just think about it this way, that’s four extra months you get to lie to yourself that you’re going to use your refund to pay down debt.

So everybody calm the fuck down and go to Liberty Tax like an American.

1He was only sentenced to six months of house arrest because he was just 15 years old. He cracked one of the most secure computer networks in the world before he cracked puberty.
2Which is going to be awesome once it’s undeniable that TurboTax got hacked.
3Inverted penis