How the IRS Fights Identity Theft

We’ve reported on more than a few occasions about tax-related identity theft (here’s a crazy recent case), and now LowCards.com tells us what Uncle Sam is doing about it…

• The IRS has doubled the number of employees assigned to tax-related ID theft in the past year to over 3,000.
• The agency has trained 35,000 employees who work with taxpayers to recognize identity theft indicators and help people victimized by identity theft.
• The IRS has activated dozens of new identity theft filters.
• A substantial increase in the number of identity theft investigations instituted by the IRS Criminal Investigations.
• The IRS is working with over 130 financial institutions to identify identity theft fraud schemes and block refunds from reaching the hands of identity thieves.

Let’s hope it pays off – no pun intended. The IRS has a tip sheet for how you can help prevent getting ripped off, too.