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you realize they dont file your actual w2 figures, right?
basically I have your SS# I make up figures and file.
I had this exact thing happen to me this year. E-file got rejected, had to file a identity theft form along with my printed taxes and mail it in. Double checked all the accounts and credit cards - nothing showing up there. I'm guessing someone filing a fake return to try and steal a refund.
Yeah, just a PITA! Did you owe? Did you get a refund? We owe so I paid the amount due to the IRS on my CC, and now that amount is just in a "pending" state. Had to call IRS on hold 2.5 hours. Had to call state on call 1 hour. Now I have to fill out a bunch of forms, get affidavits, a police report. What a crock!
Really? The way it seems to me is that you get a SS# file a fraudulent return and that is it.
Hacked ADP/some other payroll processor?
Could you pull this off without doing an efile? I mean just mail it in? I don't know if they check mailed in stuff nearly as hard as efile.
I'd assume so, it would just take a tad longer. They do check entries in hard copy form (I transposed 2 numbers from my W2 one time and they caught it, to my benefit no less), which is why my guess is they file before W2s get processed and just make up a return that gets something sent back to them in check form. With AML laws these days we're probably talking about less than 10K refund checks that they then take to their check casher. Anything more than that would automatically get flagged by a bank these days.
Employers aren't required to file W2s until the end of March but the IRS starts accepting tax returns in February. They take advantage of the time in between by filing tax returns with fake wage/withholding information since there is about a 2 month period where the IRS has nothing to check the tax return against. The IRS will eventually catch it once the W2s get filed but by that time the refund has already been issued and deposited to the scammer's bank account which has been emptied and closed by that point.
Seems simple enough but tell that to all the people filing their taxes in February who want their refund check ASAP. They aren't going to be very happy if they have to wait until late March to get their money.Seems like a simple solution here. Don't send refund checks till W2s line up.
Isn't this already the case with e-filing? I have to use a pin or else enter my last year's taxable wages from last year's tax return to file.
Creditors just build in the fraud and charge people X% more in terms of terminal fees or interest charges. IRS just gets more money from us eventually, so they just don't have a real worry about stopping things until that % starts becoming big enough to affect them. Do people really notice that they pay 20% interest on credit cards instead of 19%?
How in the world does this portion of our government get anything right?
The root of the problem is he use of SS# as a global identifier to begin with. When the SS system was created, the government was only able to implement the system by making it outright illegal for anyone else to use your SS# as an identifier. Obviously that fell away fairly quickly and has lead to all sorts of problems.
Yes using 19th century technology in the 21st century is probably not going to end well for anyone using the IRS.
I ask if I can make sure to send me a PIN for 2015 taxes, and the lady tells me no, just wait and see and call later. Stupid government workers.
