 FACEBOOK |
 TWITTER |
|
SHARE
|
Have a question or a privacy issue that you'd like us to investigate ? Send an to our editors with your comments.
A 40-year-old Miami man has been arrested for allegedly filing fraudulent income-tax refund checks worth over $12 million. Turns out he’s not the only criminal doing this sort of crime in Florida, as the FTC just released that the Sunshine State tops the nation in identity-theft complaints and tax-related fraud!
Click to find out what the Miami man has been purchasing with the stolen funds (hint: it rhymes with Maddilac, Haguar, and Torshe). Read More
Identity theft related tax fraud remains a significant problem, despite the IRS preventing an alarming $20 billion of fraudulent refunds in 2012. This is a large increase in protection of refunds, $6 billion more than in 2011.
Click to find out more about what the IRS is doing for both fraud prevention and victim assistance.
It’s Tax Season 2013 but are you taking all necessary steps to avoid becoming a victim of identity theft? Sadly, millions of Americans have already become victims of tax-related fraud and will now need to use a special PIN when filing their returns. Yet another “hurdle” for victims to have to jump through or a benefit for victims?
Also worth listening to is an IRS-produced podcast entitled “Are You a Victim of Identity Theft?” that’s included in this article.
|
1 COMMENT |
A 29-year-old Florida woman was sentenced to more than five years in prison, to be followed by three years of supervised release, in connection with an identity theft tax-fraud scheme targeting the names and personal data of 44 U.S. Marines.
Convicted of wire fraud and aggravated identity theft, prosecutors say Dorothy Boulin expected to be paid 20% of the money obtained from filing phony tax returns. Prosecutors say she had more than 100 photocopies of stolen driver’s license identification cards, Social Security cards, and printouts of more than 200 names, dates of birth, and Social Security numbers. Read More
An underground epidemic? A new CNN investigation into identity theft and tax fraud calls it a “scary proposition” due to just how easy it is for scammers to steal tax refunds from hard-working American citizens.
How easy is it? Read More
Con men have pleaded guilty to filing false tax returns over the Internet, using TurboTax, an online tax filing program. Read More
To minimize your chances of identity theft during tax season — and year round — the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is out with a list to deter fraud. Some of the tips include the following: Read More
We all want to prevent tax-time identity fraud, but as it’s the no. 1 scam on the IRS Dirty Dozen list for 2012, it’s pretty clear this may take some effort.
One of the best tips is to safeguard your Social Security number. After all, in order to file a phony tax return, a thief simply needs a taxpayer’s name, Social Security number, and birth date.
What is less apparent is that your social networking pages could be helping an identity thief. Read More
Popular Grey’s Anatomy star Sandra Oh has told the Los Angeles police she is the victim of an apparent identity theft. She told the police that someone has fraudulently used her Social Security number in order to get a job at a hotel, causing the Internal Revenue Service to come after Oh for unpaid taxes from 2009. It was not immediately clear how the identity thief accessed the Social Security number, nor was it clear whether Oh’s financial information was also stolen. Read More
Filing your taxes? There’s an app for that. Actually, there are a few apps for that. These days time is a precious commodity and the ability to file your taxes through your Smartphone seems like a dream come true. You are now able to snap a picture of your W-2 with your Smartphone, have the information automatically entered and then submitted to the federal government. It doesn’t get much easier than that. Convenience though, often goes hand in hand with a lower level of security and these Smartphone apps are no exception. In order to understand the risks of using these apps one must look at just what is available, what the risks of usage are, and how to protect oneself. Read More
topics
TWEET
Print
email