Tuesday, June 30, 2015

Internal Revenue E-Filing Scam

Last September 60 Minutes reported on a scam costing billions each year. Sunday June 28, 2015 they gave an update. No significant progress reported. In fact the scam is growing rapidly. It is so simple anyone can do it. All that is needed is a SSN and date of birth. You fill out a bogus form with any numbers you chose then request a modest refund of $1,500 or so. On the average within 7 days the check is in the mail. It can be sent to a prepaid debit card. The IRS will send the money to it. It can be spent until all funds are used up and then discarded with no chance of locating the owner. This has been known since 2008. The senate Finance Committee has reviewed this three times; in 2009, 2011 and 2012 without correcting. The so-called experts predict it will grow and exceed $21 Billion by 2016. With the added exposure by 60 Minutes, no doubt many others will try their hand at something so simple. The reason given for the E- IRS tax form is to help those who don’t have a bank account which means they would have to pay to have checks cashed. In other words those highly paid individuals promoting this program are willing to have us robbed of Billions in order to continue for what must be a very few families. I can tell you as a former member of private management, that within days of realizing a new programs failure, it would be shut down. I am sending this to my elected officials requesting that they order the IRS to immediately stop E-filing and require all taxpayers to use paper forms and send in, as I have always done, together with all required W-2 and other forms required. At the very least the IRS should be allowed to not refund money until the proper forms are in their hands. How can we ever recover with known scams like this being allowed to continue? Jack B. Walters June 30, 2015

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