Tag Archives: IRS

Your friends at the Internal Revenue Service are eager to get everyone to do their federal taxes online. But in their efforts to make everything quick and easy, they’ve wound up helping Internet tax scammers, too. And it’s not a phishing scheme or involves hacking, but is based on filing false online returns and collecting the refund. So this tax season, the government is warning people of the dangers. Identity thieves are very busy – last year, the IRS identified nearly a million fraudulent returns to the tune of $6.5 billion. Over half of these were related to identify theft, which is three times the amount of just three years before. And those are just the ones caught before any refunds had been issued. The IRS can’t, or won’t, even estimate how much money they’ve actually sent to scammers. Tax fraud has become an epidemic especially in areas like South Florida, with some gangs replacing drug sales and robberies with online crimes committed with iPads. Gangs even hold work parties to teach each other and commit hundreds of crimes in a single session. So many local officials are complaining about the lack of governmental concern and effective action. Working the fraud, authorities claim, is quite simple, and there are even written tutorials for thieves. The criminals first acquire victims’ Social Security numbers and other personal information. Perhaps they buy the data from insiders with access to medical or financial records or … Continue reading →