Treasury Department Watchdog: IRS Failed to Notify Over 1 Million People of Identity Theft

IMAGINE THAT, THESE BLOOD SUCKERS CARE MORE ABOUT AN ILLEGAL PAYING TAXES THAN IDENTITY THEFT CRIMES AGAINST AMERICAN CITIZENS …

As reported at The Hill, the IRS failed to notify over one million American tax payers of identity theft from 2011 through 2015. How on earth does a U.S. government agency not notify an American tax payer of identity theft? The watchdog also found that the IRS does not 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. WHAT!!! But instead we get the following from this disgraceful agency, during hearings in April, IRS Commissioner John Koskinen said that the agency doesn’t go after the immigrants who do this because the agency wants them to pay the taxes they owe. What the hell does that have to do with alerting victims of identity theft? The IRS would rather collect the money from illegals than stop the felony crime of identity theft and the hassle that it causes victims? UNREAL. As Hot Air opines, “So there you have it. The IRS has known this was a problem since 2011. Since then it has identified an additional 1.1 million victims of employment related identity theft and, with the exception of a 2014 pilot program, failed to notify the victims … because they don’t want to discourage the illegal immigrants who use identity theft to get a job from filing tax returns.”

The IRS truly needs to be abolished and a new form of tax collection put in place.

The Internal Revenue Service identified close to 1.1 million taxpayers who were victims of employment-related identity theft from 2011 through 2015, but almost none of the victims were informed, a Treasury Department watchdog found in a report made public this week.

Employment-related identity theft can cause significant burden to taxpayers, including the incorrect computation of taxes based on income they did not earn,” said J. Russell George, the Treasury inspector general for tax administration, whose office issued the report.

Employment-related identity theft is when someone uses another person’s Social Security number to get a job. The IRS identifies cases of employment-related ID theft when electronic tax returns are filed with an individual taxpayer identification number that doesn’t match income documents associated with the accompanying Social Security number.

The issue has gotten attention in Congress, in part because people in the country illegally tend to be the ones using other people’s Social Security numbers to get jobs. During hearings in April, IRS Commissioner John Koskinen said that the agency doesn’t go after the immigrants who do this because the agency wants them to pay the taxes they owe. Koskinen’s comments have drawn criticism from Republican lawmakers.

The inspector general report does not explicitly mention illegal immigration and does not discuss whether the IRS should be alerting immigration authorities. Instead, it focuses on the agency’s failure to notify people whose numbers were used by others.

Press Release: Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration.

The IRS is Not Notifying or Providing Sufficient Assistance to Victims of Employment-Related Identity Theft

WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) does not currently notify taxpayers it identifies as victims of employment-related identity theft, nor has it established an effective process to ensure that it sends the required notice to the Social Security Administration (SSA) to alert the SSA of earnings not associated with a victim of employment-related identity theft.

These are two significant findings in an audit report that the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) publicly released today.

Employment-related identity theft occurs when someone uses the identity of another person to gain employment. Taxpayers may first realize they are victims of this type of crime when they receive an IRS notice of a discrepancy in the income they reported on their tax return.

The IRS’s Automated Underreporter (AUR) program identifies such discrepancies when it matches taxpayer income reported on third-party information returns (e.g., Forms W-2, Wage and Income Statement) to amounts that taxpayers report on their individual income tax returns.

TIGTA conducted this audit to evaluate the IRS’s AUR processes to identify and assist victims of identity theft. In July 2011, TIGTA reported that the IRS was in a unique position to identify cases of employment-related identity theft. TIGTA recommended that the IRS implement procedures to timely alert taxpayers when it becomes aware that their identity was stolen. However, in this review, TIGTA determined that taxpayers are still not notified.

During the period February 2011 to December 2015, the IRS identified almost 1.1 million taxpayers who were victims of employment-related identity theft. In April 2014, the IRS started a pilot initiative to begin notifying taxpayers that they may be a victim of employment-related identity theft. TIGTA’s review of the pilot notification initiative found that the IRS did not sufficiently design the pilot to include a representative sample of employment-related identity theft victims.

Further, TIGTA found that the IRS has not established an effective process to ensure that it sends the required notice to alert the SSA of earnings not associated with a victim of employment-related identity theft. TIGTA’s review of a statistically valid sample of 71 cases from the population of 1,878 Tax Year 2013 AUR cases closed as identity theft (i.e., cases that involved a discrepancy related to wages reported on the tax return) identified that the SSA has no record of receiving an IRS notice for 15 (21 percent) of the 71 cases.

“Employment-related identity theft can cause significant burden to taxpayers, including the incorrect computation of taxes based on income they did not earn,” said J. Russell George, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration.

TIGTA made four recommendations in the report. The IRS agreed with three recommendations and partially agreed with the fourth. The IRS plans to take corrective action on the recommendations. In its response to TIGTA’s report, the IRS stated that it has scheduled programming changes that will be implemented in January 2017 to notify taxpayers when the IRS has reason to believe they may be victims of identity theft.

Read the report.