Orly Taitz, personally responsible for publishing President Obama’s social-security number on the Internet, now finds herself the victim of identity theft with her SSN being used to file for a fraudulent tax refund, so reports Taitz along with a heavily-redacted letter from the IRS.
Taitz, of course, wants copies of the fraudulent return, I suppose so she can unleash her hoard of volunteer investigators on the case. The IRS has declined.
Taitz was somewhat stingy with the details, but here’s an article about tax refund identity theft from the IRS.
If I read the “heavily-redacted letter” correctly she got a refund she wasn’t entitled to. Oh darn, wish that would happen to me!!
The other thing I notice is that the letter is addressed just to her. I find it hard to believe that she and her husband would file separate returns. Anything is possible, of course.
A personal joint return would prompt a letter addressed to both of them….in my experience with the IRS.
I notice she covered up the letter’s form number so we really don’t have any idea what this was about.
Well, that’s awful news: if Orly did something competently, it can only mean that we’re entering the End Times.
Time to set up a google news alert for stories about the surprise births of lambons or liambs…
The last thing that the IRS wants is a taxpayer inserting himself or herself into an identify theft investigation.
Orly has probably concluded (evidence-free, of course) that someone from The Fogbow has stolen her identity.
But why would the IRS send her a refund because of identity theft? And the use of Language in the letter is very strange. My guess is it’s a spoof, and that (as usual) she reads the first three words and jumps to conclusions.
Years ago we had an employee whose SS number was misused by a person she knew. She didn’t find out about it until the IRS sent her a letter telling her she had overpaid her FICA taxes and their total didn’t match what was on her 1040 and asking how she wanted to handle it.
The person misusing the SS number to get a job didn’t file any tax returns but withholding was applied to our friend’s account.
No….once they figured it out she didn’t get the money. The government kept it and does quite well in these cases from what I’ve read.
Actually, it is quite simple. When someone, and particularly a moron like Orlena, broadcasts their personal information, most particularly their SSN to all and sundry, as she has done on a number of occasions, all it takes is some filling out the forms with a different address on them and filing forms with fictitious information in them sufficient to generate a refund and submitting the forms. If the figures on the form balance out, the IRS computers will generally generate a refund unless they are too out of line or there is some other issue. End result a fictitious return is filed with new address and banking information, fraudster gets the funds and does a bunk, and Orlena or whoever gets stuck holding the bag as it were. The real taxpayer then has the joy of trying to prove to the IRS that they DIDN’T submit that return and get the unearned refund, and the IRS can be very sticky and difficult about it.
It also happens to totally innocent people who didn’t do anything stupid, a la Orlena, and had their SSN stolen in any number of ways, with same end result. That is also how they get fraudulent credit accounts and such. Stolen SSN’s and ID info are a big business in certain circles.
26 U.S.C. section 6103 would the basis for refusing to share a copy of the purportedly fraudulent return. Congress has prohibited the IRS from disclosure.