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A Red Deer man is warning others to be vigilant after he was nearly scammed out of a $18,000 tax return.

Mike Godwin, a firefighter in Red Deer, said his accountants alerted him last week that someone was able to get his SIN, create a fake tax profile and gain access to his CRA online profile.

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“The CRA sent them a PIN number to access my profile and then with information from my 2017 tax return, they answered the questions and were granted my profile,” said Godwin

Godwin said his SIN was all the fraudster needed to bypass security protocols set in place by the CRA.

“The CRA has strong security controls in place to protect taxpayer information,” said Alexandre Igolkine, a CRA spokesperson, in an email. “When registering for our secure online services, the CRA must confirm the identity before granting access to confidential tax information and services.”

In order to confirm an identity, Igolkine said the CRA will need an individual to verify their tax information, their social insurance number, their month and year of birth and their total income from the past year’s return.