identity theft

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced Tuesday that a brute force hacking attempt has compromised approximately 104,000 taxpayer accounts through the utilization of the “Get Transcript” tool located on IRS.gov.  Hackers utilized information gleaned from black market sources to answer identity verification questions and receive confidential information from the IRS system. The IRS reports that the system has been used 23 million times to provide taxpayers important information about their tax accounts as well as wage and earnings information.  “It is important to understand less than one half of one percent of successful requests were fraudulent,” said Aaron Blau, a [...]

What is 'Identity Theft?' Identity theft occurs when someone uses your personal information, such as name, social security number, or other information, without your permission, to commit fraud or other crimes. How can Identity Theft Affect Me? Generally, an identity thief will use legitimate identity information to fraudulently file an income tax return using phony information to claim a refund to which they are not entitled. Taxpayers are generally unaware this has occurred until they attempt to file their tax returns.  Upon e-filing of the return, the processing is halted for a 'duplicate return' rejection code. You may also discover [...]