Boston Globe Article: “ IRS is Overwhelmed by Identity Theft Fraud”.
In the 2/16/2014 Boston Globe, Michael Kranish’s article was subtitled ‘Billions wrongly paid out as scammers find the agency an easy target’. He notes that anyone with ‘a stolen social security number, a computer, and the basic knowledge to file a tax return’ can get into the business of defrauding the IRS. Though the IRS is catching onto the schemes and thwarting many of them using a series of more sophisticated filters, $21 billion may be paid out over the next 5 years to fraudsters at least according to the US Treasury. The number of taxpayers who have had their identities stolen has risen from 260,000 in 2010 to 1,630,000 in 2013 according to US Treasury figures. This fraud involves everyone but especially the young, the old, the dead, those in prison, and anyone who does not usually file a tax return. For those with their identities stolen, it takes an average of 312 days to get the issue resolved with the IRS and involves much agony and frustration with an understaffed IRS. The solution is to have the Congress pass changes in statutes that authorize the IRS to implement many new safeguards. These include slowing down the early refund process, requiring employers, brokers, and others to file wage reports, dividend and other investment reports earlier, giving the IRS timely access to the ‘Death Master File’, and allowing the IRS to investigate multiple payments to the same address and the same bank account before issuing the refund. Above all, it calls for more staffing at the IRS.
The President and the Congress need to act today to resolve these problems and make sure refunds are not paid to crooks and that all taxpayers pay the taxes they owe.
Harry Pukay-Martin
