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Missing Tax Data Compounds Last Minute Filing Stress

CBL Data Recovery Technologies Offers Tips to Safe Guard Crucial Data at Number Crunching Time and Complimentary Shipping in the Event of Tax Data Erasure

ARMONK, NY — April 3, 2006 — Individuals and tax professionals are increasingly preparing tax returns with commercial tax software and filing them online, creating a reliance on digital data that could be lost at the most inopportune time – April 17, 2006!

According to the Internal Revenue Service, already “more than 13 million returns have been filed this tax season by people e-filing from the comfort of their own homes, up from just over 11 million for the same period last year.” More than 33 million tax returns have already been e-filed by tax professionals.

Both individuals and tax professionals need to take precautions when handling tax data on computers regardless of what software or online method they use: The preparation of tax returns is stressful enough without having to start over, whether it is your own or the countless returns tax professionals prepare for clients.

Loss of tax data residing on computers can occur for a number of reasons, including mechanical failure, software corruption, contamination by viruses or worms, and human error.

“Individuals or organizations requiring data recovery services to meet important deadlines are regular occurrences. Tax time is no different,” says Tim Margeson, General Manager, CBL Data Recovery Technologies Inc. “E-filing and software have made filing taxes simpler, but no matter how wonderful the tool, there’s always a chance data can be lost without warning when computers are involved.”

Regardless of the threat, there are some simple steps that can be taken to avoid late penalties through unexpected tax erasure:

• Save files frequently
• Find out if your tax software has a back up feature
• Back up your critical tax data to external media such as a CD or USB thumb drive
• Keep children away from the computer containing your tax data!
• Protect your system with anti-virus software and firewalls

If disaster strikes and your tax data goes missing, don’t panic. Shut off the computer and contact a data recovery expert.

“The first instinct when faced with a system failure and potential data loss is to fiddle with the computer in the hopes it’s just a temporary glitch,” adds Margeson. “More often than not, it makes the situation worse. You are best advised to call a specialist who, in most cases, can recover the lost data.”

In the event of tax data loss, individuals and tax professionals can take advantage of the free packaging and shipping service CBL offers corporate customers via UPS, thus eliminating the stress of how they will get their affected media to CBL. Customers simply take their affected hard drive or laptop to their nearest The UPS Store or participating Mail Boxes Etc. location nationwide. Here, a member of their staff will package and ship the media to CBL. Details on this complimentary service are available at www.cbldatarecovery.com.

About CBL Data Recovery Technologies Inc. (www.cbldatarecovery.com)

Founded in 1993, CBL Data Recovery Technologies Inc. is the leading independent provider of data recovery services and software. CBL employs proprietary techniques to recover data from storage devices including hard drives, tapes, RAIDs and external storage media. CBL offers services through its global network of data recovery laboratories, offices and authorized partners. In the United States, CBL has data recovery laboratories in Armonk, New York; Atlanta, Georgia; San Diego, California, and Houston, Texas.

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