A few years ago on this blog I recounted my experience with the IRS when trying to report that someone had filed a tax return with my name and identifying information asking for a fraudulent refund. One would hope that the IRS would be eager to get that report. But the agent at the local IRS office turned my effort to be a dutiful citizen into an antagonist endeavor.
This eye opening news item from WaPo should be infuriating. But we take it as another sad episode of the IRS being unable to do a better job. Thieves targeted $12 billion through IRS tax fraud. This part sounds almost like satire:
The IRS estimated online robbers attempted to steal least $12.2 billion, if not more, through identity theft tax refund fraud in 2016, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO). IRS vigilance thwarted most of those attempts, but the fakers got away with at least $1.6 billion. The good news is the 2016 data represent a steady and significant drop in tax identity theft since 2012.
"Good news." Yeah right. That's about a 13% success rate for what is probably minimal effort on the part of the thieves.
Get busy, IRS.
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12:42 PM 10/21/2018
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