IRS Expands Law Enforcement Assistance Program on Identity Theft to 50 States;  Victim Assistance and
Criminal Investigations Grow 

 

The IRS just announced a nationwide expansion of the program designed to help law enforcement obtain tax return data vital to their local efforts in investigating and prosecuting specific cases of identity theft.

 

More than 1,560 waiver requests have been received since the Law Enforcement Assistance Program’s inception from over 100 state and local law enforcement agencies in the nine states participating in the 

pilot. The expansion covers all 50 states as well as the District of Columbia and will be effective Friday, March 29, 2013.

 

“The results of the pilot illustrate that this works as an innovative tool for law enforcement to help pursue tough 

identity theft situations,” said IRS Acting Commissioner Steven T. Miller. “This program is an effective way for law enforcement to work with the IRS to pursue identity thieves and protect taxpayers. Expanding the program and making it permanent on a nationwide basis makes sense for victims as well as law enforcement and tax administration.”

 

The IRS also announced today continued progress on several areas involving identity theft, including resolution of more victim cases and continued emphasis on criminal investigations.

 

Since the start of 2013, the IRS has worked with victims to resolve and close more than 200,000 cases. This is in addition to the expanded Identity Protection PIN (IP PIN) pilot, an initiative to protect victims with previously confirmed cases of identity theft by creating an additional layer of security on these accounts.

 

The IRS has issued more than 770,000 IP PINs to identity theft victims at the start of this tax filing season. Click here for full article

For more information, please refer to the IRS/ITRC Fact Sheet 143

Taxpayers looking for additional information can also consult theTaxpayer Guide to Identity Theft or the IRS Identity Theft Protectionpage on the IRS website.

Identity Theft: Myth vs Fact

 

The ITRC call center is a busy place. Our small group of Victim Advisors handle calls from all over the U.S., dealing with everything from email account takeovers to medical identity theft and everything in between.

 

That being said, the same misconceptions come up again and again. We thought it would be a great idea to dispel some of these myths surrounding the issue of identity theft and replace them with the facts.

 

Myth: “No one would want my identity because my credit is terrible.”
Fact: Yes they do.  We cannot tell you how many times we hear people say your credit score matters only slightly to an identity thief. Not only can thieves obtain funds via non-traditional methods, such as payday loans, but financial identity theft is only one type of the crime. Thieves can use your identity to get medical services, avoid criminal charges and receive government benefits. None of those scenarios has anything to do with your credit score.

 

Myth: There are ways to completely avoid identity theft.
Fact: There is no way to completely remove the risk of identity theft. Even with identity theft monitoring services, it is still possible to become a victim of identity theft. Services that monitor your identity and credit can help you pinpoint activity quickly and alleviate some of the hassle of mitigating your case. However, they cannot prevent you from ever becoming a victim of identity theft.

 

Myth: If I know who the identity thief is, they will be arrested.
Fact: Even if you have the name, address and picture of the person who stole your identity, the chances of them being arrested and charged are low. Often times victims have a hard time even obtaining a police report for their identity theft cases. Identity theft is so rampant that law enforcement has a hard time working through all of the cases.  Unless the case has certain factors, such as mortgage fraud or large sums of money, law enforcement may not get too involved. While this may seem frustrating to victims, we stress that individuals can clear their cases up with little more than a copy of their police report. It is more important for a victim to focus on rectifying their situation, than catching the thief.

 

Myth: You can tell a person’s age by their Social Security number (SSN).
Fact: Parents whose children have become victims of identity theft will often ask how it is possible that someone used a child’s personal information to obtain goods or services that a child would not need or want. The truth is that if an identity thief goes in and buys a car using a 5-year- old’s SSN, most likely the car dealership and the financing institution will not know that the SSN belongs to a child.  When a credit report is run, especially if it is blank like a child’s credit report would be, the age and sex of the information’s true holder will not be evident. This is why thieves find children such desirable targets when stealing identities. Not only will the crime not be discovered until the child needs their credit, but the record will be blank and ready for new credit.

Knowledge is power and using these now known facts can help you protect yourself.