On Tuesday, the IRS released a video that warns tax professionals that cybercriminals increasingly are targeting their offices and their data, and urges them to take the necessary steps to protect themselves and their clients. “Identity theft is serious”. The victim is not notified, nor are other government agencies.
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But the IRS said it’s prevented by federal law from telling taxpayers who stole their identity.
The watchdog also found that the IRS doesn’t have an effective process in place to make sure that the Social Security Administration (SSA) is alerted about earnings not associated with ID-theft victims.
“The lack of a formal process to ensure that the SSA is notified of income not associated with an innocent taxpayer is problematic because this notification is essential to ensure that victims’ Social Security benefits are not affected”, the inspector general said.
The IRS confirmed that it will begin accepting and processing tax returns once the filing season begins, and that all taxpayers and tax return preparers should file returns as usual.
Mr. Koskinen testified at the time that it may take new legislation from Congress to let his agency inform taxpayers they’d been the subject of identity theft.
The program failed, though, because it did not use a representative sample of victims, TIGTA said. Even though the IRS can not issue refunds for some early filers until at least February 15, the IRS reminds taxpayers that most refunds will still be issued within the normal timeframe: 21 days or less, after being accepted for processing by the IRS. In April 2014, the IRS began a pilot program to notify victims, but that pilot has been canceled.
Investigators notified the IRS of the problem in 2011 and a pilot program meant to test a solution was canceled, the agency’s inspector general said in a report released on August 30. This year, the agency began accepting returns on January 19. TIGTA also identified a number of cases that were incorrectly processed.
“It is stunning that the IRS has chosen to aid and abet identity thieves for so long instead of protecting the innocent victims of the theft”, Coats said, according to The Washington Times. “They’re paying taxes. It’s in everybody’s interest to have them pay the taxes they owe”, Koskinen said.
And what was Koskinen’s excuse back in April for the issue?
Vaughan proceeded to say that she personally knows of cases “in which children have been unable to claim vital social services because an illegal alien is earning income off their stolen Social Security number, of young men who try to join the military but are rejected because the identity thief has committed crimes, of couples who can’t get a mortgage because the thief trashed their credit history, and of people who have been arrested because the police think they are illegal alien fugitives”.
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He added, “What we can’t afford to do is have people feel, ‘If I pay my taxes to the IRS, they’re going to quickly check with immigration, they’re going to check with social security, they’re going to check with everybody, ‘ and even if they are here legitimately, a lot of times they’re uneasy about dealing with authority”.
