(BPT) - Tax season can be stressful, and each year people scramble to send in their tax returns, right down to the deadline. But for those who do a little preparation and avoid procrastinating, it can be significantly less tense. However, whether you’re a last-minute rusher or an ahead-of-the-game planner, you need to take steps to protect your identity during tax time, or you could be facing the greatest stress of all.

With so much financial information crossing the wires and the mail routes, tax season is ripe for exploitation by identity thieves. Unfortunately for many, the thieves haven’t hesitated to take advantage. According to a U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report (November 2012), the Internal Revenue Service identified more than 640,000 incidents of identity theft that impacted tax administration in the first nine months of 2012 alone, a large increase over prior years.

Those numbers make it clear that tax-time identity theft is a risk that everyone should take seriously. You should take steps to protect your information – this year and every year around tax time.