Tax Return Fraud in Florida and What to Do
Tax Return Fraud in Florida and What to Do
Tax Return Fraud in Florida and What to Do
leave a comment »
Do you have friends or associates who have had their tax returns stolen from them here in Florida?
I do. Recently at Broward College in Coconut Creek, Florida, several of my fellow employees’ identities were stolen. When these employees went to file their federal tax returns, they learned that their returns had already been filed by someone else fraudulently and stolen.
According to one of my colleagues, local police officers advised him to do the following:
1) Report the crime to the IRS with a theft afadavit (whereby the IRS appoints an advocate to help return a refund to the legitimate taxpayer),
2) Report the crime immediately to local law enforcement,
3) Report the crime with Federal Trade Commission, and
3) Report the crime with elected representatives, and of course,
4) Alert others to this growing problem.
Facts on tax return fraud:
Tax return fraud has been increasing steadily in recent years — especially in Tampa and South Florida. A recent Miami Herald article by Erika Bolstad reported the IRS had identified and prevented about $14 billion worth of fraudulent tax returns.
Read more about tax return fraud:
Avoid the inconvenience of having to search over the world wide web with Google, Yahoo, etc. and having to sift through results/hit list to find trustworthy/credible information that is still accessible and hasn’t been archived!
Instead, log onto and search Lantana Public Library’s NewsBank database with terms such as “Florida Tax Return Fraud”.
NewsBank then compiles credible, relevant articles on this topic from newspapers both in Florida and nationally into ONE list for users.
Users can then sort further by year, location, actual newspaper source, and source type, and print all articles for free.
Here are just a few articles that I found using the NewsBank database:
*”Feds: Tax fraud an epidemic in Florida and spreading nationwide – The Internal Revenue Service this year has flagged 2 million returns for possible fraud through identity theft “ by Erika Bolstad, Miami Herald — Tuesday, March 20, 2012.
*”BILL SPEEDS IRS REFUNDS FOR ID THEFT VICTIMS” by William E. Gibson and Donna Gehrke-White, Sun Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, FL) –Wednesday, March 21, 2012.
*”IRS PILOT PROGRAM TO COMBAT ID THEFT” by Donna Gehrke-White, Sun Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, FL), – Thursday, April 26, 2012.
Articles on the world wide web:
*”ID Thieves Loot Tax Checks, Filing Early and Often” by Lizette Alvarez, New York Times, May 26, 2012.
* “IRS policies help fuel tax refund fraud, officials say” by Scott Zamost and Randi Kaye, CNN, Tuesday, March 20, 2012.
Also see the New York Times’ Tips on Preventing Tax Return Identify Theft.
Connecticut Shredding
New Jersey Shredding
New York Shredding