Posted on 06/02/2011 5:39:39 AM PDT by upchuck
Imagine filing your tax return and learning that someone else got your refund. With your name and Social Security number, no less.
The IRS is grappling with a nearly five-fold increase in taxpayer identity theft between 2008 and 2010, a Government Accountability Office official plans to tell a House hearing Thursday. There were 248,357 incidents in 2010, compared to 51,702 in 2008.
The GAO findings don't begin to describe the pain for a first-time victim, who must wait for a refund while the IRS sorts out which return is real and which is a fraud.
Many identity thieves don't get prosecuted, according James White, director of strategic issues for the GAO..
"IRS officials told us that IRS pursues criminal investigations of suspected identity thieves in only a small number of cases," White says in testimony prepared for a House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee.
He said that in the 2010 fiscal year, the IRS criminal investigations division initiated just over 4,700 investigations of all types — far less than the identity theft cases alone.
"We want to know why this problem is apparently getting much worse," said Rep. Todd Platts, R-Pa., chairman of the subcommittee. "By bringing these issues to the public as quickly as possible, the committee hopes to give citizens the necessary information so they can protect themselves from such identity theft."
IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman, in his prepared statement, defended the criminal investigation record. He said his criminal division concentrates on schemes of national scope and added that 95 percent of those prosecuted for refund-related identity theft go to prison.
Tax identity thieves typically submit returns for refunds early in the filing season. The legitimate taxpayer usually files later, and only then learns from the IRS that two returns were filed using the same Social Security number.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
ping
This is one of the reasons why I do not file an on-line tax return.
I would think the IRS should investigate the incidences of paper return identity theft as compared to on-line return identity theft.
Obamacare will never have this problem! I trust Pelosi/ Extreme sarc
I always owe money at the end of the year. So the bastards can pay my bill.
And look at the amount of thugs, I mean IRS auditors that would no longer be needed.
is the irs responsible for this id theft??????
I disagree. The FairTax has that stupid rebate mechanism, so there’s every incentive for wrongdoers to subvert the process in order to collect others’ checks.
The rebate is the main reason I am opposed to the FairTax and support a small flat or no income tax instead.
or they could pay us:
Feds owe Uncle Sam $3B in unpaid taxes
At a time when the White House is projecting the largest deficit in the nation’s history, Uncle Sam is trying to recover billions of dollars in unpaid taxes from its own employees.
Federal workers owe more than $3 billion in income taxes they failed to pay in 2008. According to Internal Revenue Service documents, 276,300 federal employees and retirees owe $3,042,200,000.
http://www.wtop.com/?nid=428&sid=1838232
I can’t imagine why people are not more angry.
Thousands more earn six figures as millions in private sector lose jobs
http://www.tennessean.com/article/20091211/NEWS08/912110360/Federal+workers++pay+soars
Anything to do with on-line filing?
What does the article say?
Fixed it.
At work here.
It did not specify. Just said that the thief files a return for a refund earlier than the actual taxpayer files.
Same here. I had it to where we owed just under $100 every year, but this year we actually got back $50 and some change.
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