Media Articles
Second Defendant Pleads Guilty in Identity Theft Tax Refund Fraud Scheme
U.S. Attorney’s Office January 09, 2014 Wifredo A. Ferrer, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida; José A. Gonzalez, Special Agent in Charge, Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI); Michael B. Steinbach, Special Agent in Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Miami Field Office; and Daniel C. Alexander,…
IDENTITY THEFT: The IRS Should Adopt a New Approach to Identity Theft Victim Assistance that Minimizes Burden and Anxiety for Such Taxpayers
Tax-related identity theft continues to impose significant burdens on taxpayers and the IRS. Since 2004, the National Taxpayer Advocate has identified this issue as one of the "Most Serious Problems" faced by taxpayers in nearly every annual report submitted to Congress. In addition, the National Taxpayer Advocate has testified at…
Debt Collection Employee and Son-in-Law Sent to Prison for Identity Theft Tax Scheme
Department of Justice Office of Public Affairs Monday, November 4, 2013 Quentin Collick of Montgomery, Ala., and Deatrice Williams of Duluth, Ga., were sentenced Nov. 1, 2013, to serve 85 and 51 months in prison, respectively, announced Assistant Attorney General Kathryn Keneally of the Justice Department’s Tax Division and U.S….
Council for Citizens Against Government Waste Video: Stolen Identity Refund Fraud (SIRF)
Council for Citizens Against Government Waste When: November 12, 2013 at 12:30 Eastern Time. Where: Capitol Visitors Center SVC 201-00 Each year, countless Americans are defrauded by a growing cabal of sophisticated criminals, who steal the identities of these unsuspecting victims and use their names to submit fraudulent tax returns. Not only…
More Than 122 Million Returns E-Filed in 2013
WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service today announced a milestone for IRS e-file – more than 122 million returns were e-filed during 2013. The statistics provided today contain complete e-file totals for 2013. This year, the IRS received more than 45.2 million returns from those who prepared and e-filed their…
Tax refund ID theft is growing ‘epidemic’: IRS watchdog
Patrick Temple-West Reuters | Nov. 7, 2013 Jason Reed / Reuters J. Russell George, treasury inspector general for tax administration, says identity theft is "a growing epidemic." WASHINGTON — More Americans’ identities were stolen in tax refund crimes in the first six months of 2013 than in all of 2012, said an…
TIGTA Reports Examine IRS Identity Theft Processes, Services
By Jason Bramwell Identity theft was the focus of two reports released by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) on November 7 – the first concluding that the IRS issued billions of dollars in potentially fraudulent refunds in tax year 2011 despite expanded identity theft detection processes, and…
IRS paid $3.6 billion in fraudulent tax refunds
The IRS paid out $3.6 billion in fraudulent tax refunds to identity thieves last year, according to an inspector general report. By Gregory Wallace November 7, 2013 In total, the agency failed to prevent 1.1 million potentially fraudulent tax returns for 2011 from being processed, according to an audit by…
Alabama State Employee Sentenced for Providing Names in Identity Theft Scheme
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 2013 WWW.USDOJ.GOV WASHINGTON – Lea’Tice Phillips, of Montgomery County, Ala., was sentenced to serve 94 months of incarceration today, announced Assistant Attorney General Kathryn Keneally of the Justice Department’s Tax Division and U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Alabama George L. Beck Jr. Phillips was also…
Five Individuals Charged with Filing False Tax Returns and Related Crimes as part of Stolen Identity Refund Fraud Initiative
September 16, 2013 BATON ROUGE, LA – Acting United States Attorney Walt Green announced the filing of criminal charges against five (5) individuals accused of committing tax fraud, identity theft, and related crimes in the Baton Rouge area. Collectively, these five individuals are alleged to have submitted more than 1,000…
ID theft ring filed false tax returns, bought gift cards, authorities say
By Erika Pesantes, Sun Sentinel 6:15 p.m. EDT, October 11, 2013 Eight people from Broward County, including three siblings, are accused of stealing identities to get illegal tax refunds in order to buy thousands of dollars in gift cards from South Florida retailers. Accused of multiple fraud and aggravated identity theft charges…
Feds bust about 40 South Floridians accused of ID theft, tax fraud totaling millions of dollars
BY JAY WEAVER | jweaver@MiamiHerald.com Federal agents swept through South Florida this week to arrest about 40 people charged with the viral-spreading crimes of identity theft and tax-refund fraud. U.S. Attorney Wifredo Ferrer said the takedown was the biggest yet since his office established a strike force to target the…
