Government Will Not Protect You (IRS Identity Theft Version)
Molly McCluskey writes at The Motley Fool about the latest in identity theft -- scammers after your tax refund:
During the 2011 tax processing year, roughly 940,000 tax returns were filed fraudulently. This year the number will likely reach 1 million. Even the IRS' own taxpayer advocate, Nina Olson, says the IRS is woefully incapable of handling the boom.A recently released report from the National Taxpayer Advocate to Congress says that the IRS "has failed to provide effective and timely assistance to victims of identity theft" even as the number of crimes continues to soar. Olson says in the report that tax-related identity theft has risen some 650 percent since 2008.
...The IRS allows filing of taxes as early as Jan. 19, and prompt thieves will file immediately with the hopes of beating more cautious individuals to their own returns.
I know an IRS agent who was commenting on the increase in fraudulent tax returns a couple of months ago. She said simply pushing the April 15th filing deadline back and not allowing filing before W-2s come out would put a big dent in the problem. Unfortunately, the .gov does not appear to be interested in actually doing anything about it.
Jim at January 29, 2013 11:00 AM
Why should they? Fisrt off it isnt 'their' money being stolen, its tax refunds.
Second in trying to fix the problem, as opposed to acctually fix the problem they can create a whole new beuracracy
lujlp at January 29, 2013 2:26 PM
There was an identity theft program that the IRS ran years ago that they would automatically hold the refund for 30 days if the new address was more than 100 miles from the old address and the occupation and numbers were significantly different from the prior year.
So if I lived in Atlanta, GA and put my job down as information technology in 2011 and made $70K. If the next year (2012) someone filed that I lived in Mobile, Al and was a roofer and made $30K, they would put a thirty day hold on it. Then if the IRS got another 1040 from Atlanta, GA and put my job down as information technology in 2012 at $72K -- they would hold the refund until one of us called, or sent a letter, and inquired.
It wasn't (isn't) a perfect solution, but that would probably cut down on a lot of identity theft.
Happened to a friend in the 90's
Jim P. at January 29, 2013 8:15 PM
Leave a comment