To Catch a Thief
Thursday, March 14th, 2013 @ 7:03PM
Citizens Against Government Waste, a private, non-partisan, non-profit organization, dedicated to fighting and eliminating waste in government, wrote an informative article on March 7, 2013 pertaining to the identity theft-based tax refund fraud problem facing our nation.
By Leslie Paige
‘Tis the season…for tax refund fraud. And the 2012 filing season promises to be a whooper when it comes to taxpayers’ refunds being ripped off.
Unscrupulous thieves have sussed out a wide array of schemes using identity theft to file fraudulent tax returns on behalf of unsuspecting taxpayers, get the refunds back quickly, and cash the checks before the real taxpayer even knows that he or she has been taken. When the authentic taxpayer eventually fails to receive the refund, it can take up to a year and untold hours of bureaucratic wrangling to convince the IRS that he or she is the rightful beneficiary of that refund, at which time the IRS pays the bona fide filer. The U.S. Treasury is out the money, as well.
Posted by Robert Strait
Categories: Online articles