Identity thieves have stolen the tax information of more than 100,000 people via a service ran by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the government agency has advised. Speaking before the Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday, IRS Commissioner John Koskinen advised that the government body is working with state governments and producers of tax software to make it more difficult for a thief to steal tax refunds destined for their rightful recipients.
According to the Huffington Post, thieves accessed “Get Transcript,” an IRS system that allowed taxpayers to acquire returns and filings from earlier years. In order to do so, thieves had to supply details including the taxpayer’s name, address, Social Security number, date of birth, and tax filing status. Approximately 200,000 attempts were made by “questionable email domains,” according to Koskinen, with the affected system targeted between February until mid-May.
“We’re confident that these are not amateurs,” Koskinen told the committee. “These actually are organized crime syndicates that not only we but everybody in the financial industry are dealing with.”
Last year, the IRS believes 2.7 million US taxpayers were victims of identity theft, with estimates of fraudulent refund payments in 2013 said to be around $5.8 billion. For the details acquired in the breach, Koskinen believes fraudulent refund claims amount to less than $50 million.
Koskinen advised that he had talked with state tax officials and CEOs of tax preparation and major tax software companies to improve the security of the tax system, reports CNN Money. “The purpose of this meeting is to start a partnership where we work together to fight the battle,” claims the commissioner, with more details about the partnership expected to be revealed next week.
