Billion Dollar Blunder: IRS Issued Billions to Identity Thieves

The only thing they seem to be on top of is if you owe THEM money. Or if they owe an actual American Taxpayer an honest refund, good luck getting that as well. IRS = Incompetent Ragabash Scum.

 

From The Blaze:

WASHINGTON (TheBlaze/AP) — The Internal Revenue Service issued $4 billion in fraudulent tax refunds last year to people using stolen identities, with some of the money going to addresses in Bulgaria, Lithuania and Ireland, according to an inspector general’s report released Thursday.

J. Russell George (Getty Images)

The IRS sent a total of 655 tax refunds to a single address in Lithuania, and 343 refunds went to a lone address in Shanghai.

Again, 343 payments to one address.

In the U.S., more fraudulent returns went to Miami than any other city. Other top destinations were Chicago, Detroit, Atlanta and Houston.

Florida is a big target of identity theft in part because of the large number of older residents living there. Older and younger people can be targets for identity theft because many don’t meet the income requirements to file a federal tax return.

Nearly 38,000 potentially fraudulent refunds, totaling $147 million, were sent to addresses in Miami last year, the report said.

Among individual homes, one address in Orlando received 580 tax refunds totaling $870,000 last year, the report said. Another Orlando address received 291 refunds totaling $466,000.

The IRS has stepped up efforts to fight identity theft, but thieves are getting more aggressive, said the report by J. Russell George, Treasury’s inspector general for tax administration. Last year, the IRS stopped more than $12 billion in fraudulent refunds from going to identity thieves, compared with $8 billion the year before.

“Identity theft continues to be a serious problem with devastating consequences for taxpayers and an enormous impact on tax administration,” George said in a statement. The fraud “erodes taxpayer confidence in the federal tax system.”

Thieves often steal Social Security numbers from people who don’t have to file tax returns, including the young, the old and people who have died, the report said. In other cases, thieves use stolen Social Security numbers to file fraudulent tax returns before the legitimate taxpayer files.

The IRS, which takes pride in issuing quick refunds, often sends them out before employers are required to file forms documenting wages, the report said.

“The constantly evolving tactics used by scammers to commit identity theft continues to be one of the biggest challenges facing the IRS, and we take this issue very seriously,” the IRS said in a statement. “The IRS has a comprehensive and aggressive identity theft strategy that focuses on preventing refund fraud, investigating these crimes and assisting taxpayers victimized by it.”

Despite budget cuts, the agency said, agents have resolved more than 565,000 cases of identity theft this year, three times the number of cases resolved at the same time last year.

A separate report by George said the number of identity theft victims is on the rise as thieves get more aggressive.

Through June, the IRS identified 1.6 million victims who had their identities stolen during this year’s tax filing season, the report said. That compares with 1.2 million victims in 2012.

Many of these people didn’t realize they were victims until they submitted their returns only to learn from the IRS that someone else had already used their Social Security number to file and claim a refund.

The IRS usually identifies the proper owner of Social Security numbers, but the process can be lengthy, the report said. For cases closed between August 2011 and July 2012, it took an average of 312 days to resolve the case and issue a proper refund, the report said.

The IRS said it has resolved most of this year’s identity theft cases within 120 days.

For this year, the IRS says it has developed a computer program that helps agents spot when multiple refunds are going to the same address or bank account. As of May 30, the program identified 154,302 tax returns and stopped $470 million in tax refunds from being issued, the report said.

Here’s a copy of the report:

FINAL THOUGHT: Remember, this is the same organization that will be in charge of enforcing Obamacare.