Of the more than 490,000 identity theft complaints in the U.S. last year, just over 45 percent of them involved tax or wage theft.
Tax refund theft happens when a criminal uses a stolen social security number to file a false tax return and claim a refund.
Local CPA David Young typically sees a handful of clients who fall victim to this scam each year. He said there could potentially be more cases of tax refund theft this year because of the recent Excellus data security breach.
"You'll see upticks in our area if something has been breached,” Young said. “We had an insurance company whose members' identities have been stolen; the bad guys got in there and potentially got some information, so we could see an uptick." But a spokesman for Excellus tells WXXI News that they have said all along that the insurance company has no evidence that any information was removed from their system, and he says there is not any evidence that information from the Excellus system has been used inappropriately.
The IRS itself was the victim of a cyber-attack last year; And in February, the agency said that hackers gained access to personal data from more than 700,000 taxpayer accounts, more than double the total previously estimated.
Young says if you go to file your tax return and discover that someone has already done that using your identity, you should immediately contact the IRS Identity Protection Specialized Unit at 1-800-908-4490 and the Federal Trade Commission at 1-877-438-4338. Lastly, you’ll want to contact the credit reporting agencies.
Young said you will eventually get your refund, but the process could take six to nine months to sort out.
