HACKERS, IDENTITY THEFT & THE IRS

Saturday started out to be a beautiful day. The sun was shining as I walked to the mailbox at the end of our driveway that morning. Sifting through the junk mail as I walked toward the house, my heart skipped a beat when I saw a letter  from the IRS.  No, we didn’t have a refund coming, so it wasn’t a welcome sight.  Who wants to receive a letter from those guys? I ripped open the envelope before I even got inside the house and slowly lowered myself into a chair.

Dear Taxpayer, it began.  Then went on to say they needed to verify our identity before processing our tax return.  This did not sound good.  Was it a sneaky way to tell us we were being audited?  We were given 30 days to reply to this letter “4883C”  by phone or mail. First, I would need to gather various documents, including the previous 2 years tax returns. (Thank you, God, we don’t do our own taxes).  We’ve used the same accountant for 30 years, but the letter said we couldn’t ask him to handle this for us; we had to do it ourselves..  

I put the letter down and dialed the toll free number, but of course, they said they were closed on weekends. This would give me two days to stew about it, even though my husband wasn’t concerned.  I did what I always do at times like this; got on the net and keyed in 4883C IRS letter. There were lots of links, and most of them said the same thing. This letter does not mean you are in trouble.  Good, that calmed me down a bit.

Finally, this morning, I called a very pleasant women in Texas.  After I gave her all the information she needed, she sweetly informed me that someone had stolen our identity, filed a tax return before we did, and received a tax refund.  That sounded like something to worry about, like it or not, but she assured me we weren’t responsible for the fraudulent payment.

Now comes the curiosity phase. How do identity thieves scam the  IRS?  Apparently,there is a window of opportunity for hackers in January, because employers don't have to file W2 forms until the end of Jan.  So, the identity thieves create fake W2 forms before that time (in our case, Jan. 23) and file returns, and scurry  away with their refunds before anyone is the wiser.  Our accountant says it happens all the time and costs the IRS  billions.   But now we have this creepy feeling that someone has way Too Much Information about us. Yikes!