Wednesday, June 3rd, 2015 @ 8:52PM

The Associated Press
May 27th 2015 8:20AM

By STEPHEN OHLEMACHER

WASHINGTON — More than 100,000 taxpayers have had their personal tax information stolen from an IRS website as part of an elaborate scheme to claim fraudulent tax refunds.

The information was stolen from an online system called "Get Transcript," where taxpayers can get tax returns and other tax filings from previous years. In order to access the information, the thieves cleared a security screen that required knowledge about the taxpayer, including Social Security number, date of birth, tax filing status and street address, the IRS said Tuesday.

"We’re confident that these are not amateurs," said IRS Commissioner John Koskinen. "These actually are organized crime syndicates that not only we, but everybody in the financial industry, are dealing with."

The IRS said it is notifying taxpayers whose information was accessed. The IRS is providing them with credit monitoring services.

Koskinen wouldn’t say whether investigators believe the criminals are based overseas — or where they obtained enough personal information about the taxpayers to access their returns. The IRS has launched a criminal investigation. The agency’s inspector general is also investigating.

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Posted by Robert Strait
Categories: Online articles