Identity Theft, The IRS and You
You come home from work one day and pry out all the junk mail from your mail box. Bills. Junk mail. IRS notice. You owe $10,000 in past due tax? This could be a sign of identity theft.
When you think of identity theft, what comes to mind? For most of us, it is a visual of some scumbag opening credit cards and buying flat screen televisions using our names. At the rate retailers are going out of business, this may not be a problem for long, but I digress.
The new trend in identity theft is not to run up debt. Instead, thieves are selling stolen identities to illegal immigrants or individuals who really would like to leave there old identity behind. In either case, these people assume your identity using addresses you are unfamiliar with. They don’t steal money or credit from you, but they are going to work sooner or later. When they do, they may not file taxes on their earnings.
Now think this through. The IRS receives filings from employers telling it how much individuals made. If you report a figure on your tax return that is less than what the IRS receives from employers, red lights start flashing and auditors come sliding down the emergency audit pole like firemen. Okay, bad example. Regardless, the IRS is going to want to know why you are not declaring all your income and it is really going to want to know why you didn’t pay the full tax due on that income.
For a couple of years, the IRS viewed this nightmare situation as your problem, not its. As identity theft has become a common problem, this attitude has changed. The IRS now has a department dedicated to dealing with these problems. This unit is known by the brief and easy to use name “IRS identity Protection Specialization Unit. You can reach it by calling 1-800-908-4490.
Identity theft is a growing problem, particularly in so far as thieves are selling identities to individuals instead of using them for credit. If you start getting strange notices from the IRS, take action immediately. The sooner you do, the sooner you can nip the problem in the bud.