The IRS, together with its Security Summit partners, promises that online tax preparation products will offer multi-factor authentication in 2021, with the goal of improving security to protect both taxpayers and tax professionals.

Multi-factor authentication is a security measure that requires more than one security check to access information — for instance, a password plus a security question, or a password plus a fingerprint. Using the MFA on offer is optional, but the IRS strongly encourages taxpayers and tax professionals to use it whenever it’s available.

Users can check the security section in their online tax product account to opt in to multi-factor authentication. It may be labeled as two-factor authentication, or two-step verification, or other similar names.

The IRS Security Summit is a collective of states, tax software companies and endorsing associations and organizations. Members include major players like HR Block, Intuit, Thomson Reuters, Drake Software, and Wolters Kluwer Tax Accounting.

For 2021, all member providers agreed to make MFA a standard feature for their online tax prep products. They also agreed it would meet requirements set by the National Institute of Standards and Technology. The IRS does not guarantee that this feature will be available on on-premise tax products.

Tax software is a prime target for cybercriminals, who can use that information it contains to file taxes posing as a taxpayer and collect any resulting refund. MFA is a measure against such cybercriminals, who often use malware to gain access to this information. With multi-factor authentication enabled, a thief may be able to get one form of identification, but without the second, they will be blocked from illegally accessing accounts that aren’t theirs. Often, cybercriminals seek the easiest way in. By posing even a little extra difficulty, MFA can be a powerful deterrent to crime.