TaxGrrrl, Fix The Tax Code Friday: Increased Security & Delayed Tax Refunds
TaxGrrrl, IRS Warns Again On Payroll Scam As Tax Season Begins
Kay Bell, Fake CEO phishing tax scam is back. “Remember that tax scam last spring where crooks posing as company executives sent emails asking for workers’ payroll data?” Be careful out there, folks.
Tax Refund Fraud Global problem Local Concern
Paul Neiffer, New requirement when claiming salaries and wage deduction on entity tax returns. “Specifically, the IRS is now requiring individuals preparing your corporation, S-corporation, or partnership tax return to report the number of W-2’s your entity completed and sent out to employees if you are claiming a deduction for salaries and wages expense.”Kay Bell, State tax refunds likely to be delayed, too
Department of Justice, Over 100 Defendants Charged in Government Impersonation, Fraud, and Theft Schemes Involving Tens of Thousands of Stolen Personal Identities:
In August 2012, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida, with the collaboration of our federal, state and local law enforcement partners, established the South Florida Identity Theft Refund Fraud Strike Force (Strike Force) to combat an increase in stolen identity tax refund scams. The collective efforts of the Strike Force resulted in the successful prosecution of countless stolen identity tax refund cases. However, while the wave of these pernicious offenses subsided, evolving fraud schemes have spread across South Florida. No longer limited to stolen identity tax refund fraud, the Strike Force, now Stolen Identity Fraud (SIF) Strike Force is investigating and prosecuting a variety of cases stemming from stolen personal identifying information (PII). These cases include intrusion into proprietary government databases; theft of customer account information; takeovers by identity thieves of accounts as diverse as U.S. Social Security and unemployment benefits, retail credit card accounts, and bank accounts; and the use of skimmers to steal valuable PII.It’s good that the government is going after thieves. Still, they wouldn’t have gotten in the business if the IRS hadn’t made it easy. As the thieves branch out and get more sophisticated, good information and password hygiene is more important than ever
Sam Brunson, Privacy Is Dead: Crowdsourcing Tax Enforcement (Surly Subgroup). “Requiring the public disclosure of tax returns has at least two beneficial results, from a tax compliance perspective.”
Robert Woods, IRS Hunts Debit Cards For Tax Evasion, As Court Approves John Doe Summons. “A John Doe summons allows the IRS to get the names of all taxpayers in a certain group.”
Jim Maule turns on his television, finds A Court Case in Which All of Them Miss The Tax Point.
Robert D. Flach, MORE DON’T FORGET TO REMEMBER. More thoughts on choosing a tax preparer, and this reminder: “Regardless of who prepares your return you are ultimately responsible for all the information reported on your return!”
Kay Bell, New on more W-2 forms this year: a verification code. “The IRS says that when taxpayers take the time to add the code to their returns, it will help the agency validate that they are the real filers and authenticate the income information they are submitting.”