Illegal Immigrants Stole 1 Million Social Security Numbers, IRS Mum

Doesn’t bother to tell the taxpayers affected.

8.31.2016

An IRS investigation has discovered that illegal immigrants stole one million Social Security numbers from American taxpayers, and the agency never bothered to inform anyone, reports The Washington Times.

The investigation has been going strong for five long years, and it’s still not fixed, the report continues. The inspector general said a pilot program was launched to find a solution but wasn’t successful. As a result, most of the taxpayers affected don’t even know their IDs have been stolen or what damage there is, if any, to their Social Security files.

From the Times:

Victims’ numbers are stolen by illegal immigrants who need to give employers a valid Social Security number in order to get a job. Employers are prohibited from probing too deeply into numbers, even when they suspect fraud.

But the IRS learns of the scam when the illegal immigrants file their taxes using a special Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN) the agency doles out chiefly to illegal immigrants as a way of making sure they’re paying taxes even if they’re not supposed to be in the U.S.

Between 2011 and 2015 the agency flagged nearly 1.1 million returns where someone appeared to have stolen a valid Social Security number, the inspector general said.

The IRS did not have any new comment on the findings, instead referring reporters to an official response filed with the inspector general, in which the agency insisted it’s making progress.

The IRS’s small business commissioner Karen Schiller has faith that taxpayers will begin to be notified by next year.

“As we continue to battle and make progress against all strains of identity theft in the tax ecosystem, we recognized that we were missing an important partner in this effort — the taxpaying public,” Schiller said in response to the inspector general.

There’s a roadblock built into federal law that prevents the IRS from informing taxpayers their identity has been stolen. Therefore, only 25,000 people were notified.

IRS Commissioner John Koskinen said the agency has one job: collecting taxes, not dealing with immigration issues. At the hearing, he tried to soften the blow by saying many cases involve friends or family members willingly lending their Social Security numbers to the illegal worker. Koskinen said the IRS was being sensitive by trying not to chase away illegal immigrants who were properly filing their taxes.

Throughout the entire ordeal, communications were jumbled. The inspector general said sometimes IRS employees sent out a notice to the Social Security Administration, but the SSA said they had no record. Other times, the IRS made no notifications. This communication breakdown meant victims were left clueless and completely exposed, courtesy of the Obama administration.