Here’s a terrible thing that happens: Thieves pretend they’re you, file a tax return in your name very early in the year, claim a fat refund and run away with the money.

When you try to file your own return, the Internal Revenue Service rejects it. After all, according to the agency’s system, your taxes have already been filed.

Months, and sometimes years, of hellish red tape ensues.

The I.R.S. has a tool called an identity protection PIN, or IP PIN, that can prevent this nightmare in most instances. You register and hand over some personal information so the government can verify you. Then you get a six-digit IP PIN to use when filing your taxes each year.

Easy enough, right? But my inbox is filled these days with deep wariness. For weeks now, the so-called Department of Government Efficiency has deployed individuals inside the I.R.S. to poke at its computer systems.

Readers worried about the possibility of those people breaking something and exposing data accidentally to wider numbers of people. Or that they would inadvertently create vulnerabilities that hackers could exploit. They also said they were worried that Elon Musk or others on his team could use the I.R.S. data for nefarious purposes.

I’ve gone ahead and gotten my IP PIN anyway. So has James E. Lee, president of the Identity Theft Resource Center, a former cybersecurity executive who is on an I.R.S. advisory panel.