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How an IRS Agent Stole $1M From Taxpayers (onthewire.io)
Trailrunner7 writes: Few, if any, companies or government agencies store more sensitive personal information than the IRS, and consumers have virtually no insight into how that data is used and secured. But, as the results of a recent Justice Department investigation show, when you start poking around in those dark corners, you sometimes find very ugly things.
Beginning in 2008, a small group of people–including an IRS employee who worked in the Taxpayer Advocate Service section–worked a simple and effective scam that involved fake tax returns, phony refunds, dozens of pre-loaded debit cards, and a web of lies. The scheme relied upon one key ingredient for its success: access to taxpayers' personal information. And it brought the alleged perpetrators more than $1 million.
What sets this case apart is that the accused IRS employee, Nakeisha Hall, was tasked specifically with helping people who had been affected by some kind of tax-related identity theft or fraud.
Beginning in 2008, a small group of people–including an IRS employee who worked in the Taxpayer Advocate Service section–worked a simple and effective scam that involved fake tax returns, phony refunds, dozens of pre-loaded debit cards, and a web of lies. The scheme relied upon one key ingredient for its success: access to taxpayers' personal information. And it brought the alleged perpetrators more than $1 million.
What sets this case apart is that the accused IRS employee, Nakeisha Hall, was tasked specifically with helping people who had been affected by some kind of tax-related identity theft or fraud.
What sets this case apart is that the accused IRS employee, Nakeisha Hall, was tasked specifically with helping people who had been affected by some kind of tax-related identity theft or fraud.
Awesome! So who watches the watchers?
Select from tblFriends where interesting >= 4;
The IRS steals money from taxpayers all the time through vague rules, questionable audits and outright confiscation.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
love the IRS.
If you could get us a Finland or Netherlands style government I might change my mind, but after half a life time of watching our jokers at work, no way!
love is just extroverted narcissism
What sets this case apart is that the accused IRS employee, Nakeisha Hall, was tasked specifically with helping people who had been affected by some kind of tax-related identity theft or fraud.
Of course this would be the way to do it. Any losses that Nakeisha generated could be attributed to the fraud that the taxpayer was already suffering. Probably masked the losses quite nicely, at least for a time.
'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables
Irresponsible Retarded Scumbags?
What? Don't ask me, I don't live in the U.S.A.
YallQaeda will find out and declare YeeHad on the IRS for violating Shania law!
Damn I love twitter trolls! :)
The whole security by obscurity thing happens way more than people think. Why do you think e-file refund scams work in the first place? Because (most likely) when the core system was designed, it was assumed that an IRS employee was entering the paper returns received in the mail by hand into an IRS-controlled computer. Therefore, the system only does a cursory SSN-to-name match as a sanity check before issuing a refund for whatever amount the return shows (as long as the math checks out.) The IRS is processing millions of returns a year, so this is only noticed when a taxpayer tries to file their return and is told they've already done so; it happened to a relative of mine a couple years ago.
Not knowing the architecture, e-file really feels like a security by obscurity mess. Perhaps the IRS gives "trusted e-file providers" encryption keys for an Internet-accessible gateway, and the tax software just pumps the raw data directly into the main filing system from the end user. Also, once it gets inside the IRS, the data is probably considered "trusted" and not encrypted as it's passed around from system to system. People love to hate the IRS, and I'm sure that's reflected in budget appropriations, so whatever system is in place is probably never upgraded beyond skeleton crew maintenance stuff and new regulations coding.
This is going to be the interesting part of the Internet of Things push -- take existing systems and slap them onto the Internet, no matter what it takes. I'm seeing this a lot in the private sector as well -- cloud cloud cloud! Get our previously inaccessible, vulnerable product out on the Internet before the competition does! IoT!! We're Agile, we'll fix all the problems as we go! Social! Apps! Etc...
In this case, it's interesting psychology. The article even states it - people assume that their data is safe once it makes it inside the IRS. Same way people assume their banking or health data are safe, then find out it's not as protected as they think.
the Tax men known for taking down the Untouchable folks.
(just remember the IRS does not care where you get your money just that you properly (within the grimore that is the US Tax Code) pay the taxes.)
Run of the mill embezzlement by someone placed in just the right spot to get away with it. But you know what? It's nothing compared to the Lois Lerner mess. This thief took advantage of IRS access to steal some cash. Lerner et al took advantage of IRS control to influence public discourse and a looming election.
The tax code is incomprehensibly complex and burdensome. That's trouble all by itself. But because it plays out in the sprawling, no-accountability federal big government landscape, it provides fertile ground for everything from thievery (a la the linked-to story) to partisan shenanigans (a la Lerner-related issues).
The drive to make government always bigger, always more complex, and always more insulated from consequence - that costs each of us real, serious money that produces nothing. We do need a tax enforcement agency. But we don't need it to be responsible for such mind-bogglingly byzantine complexity that it can't even keep an eye on its own people's ongoing criminal enterprises and partisan betrayals of trust.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Do I really need the /sarc?
Evidently yes
What really upsets me is the lack of ambition and drive in the younger generation. This IRS agent could have made millions, but stopped at just one million. This really sucks, even when they can steal, they get lazy and take time off to post selfies in the facebook profile. There is no hope. Now, get off my lawn.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Nafuckingwhat?
It's just like any other operating system. Once you know how it works, really really well, your mind turns to the thought of what you could do with yoru knowledge , if you wanted to. Most people don't act on it at all. Some people are inspired to make it more secure. Some people see it as an opportunity to be evil.
When I was implementing an RFP back in the day for a certain protocol , it just so happened that what I wrote , when I posted it to a webserver, took that webserver DOWN. IT was just a quirk; nothing I wrote was wrong. Nothing the server did was wrong, but RFPs are sufficiently vague to allow for a quirks mode to surface betwen two non-coordinating implementors.
The thing was, the server had about, oh, 90% market share so what I had in effect was an Evil Death Ray on the entire internet. I never even considered there was any up side in this because I am not naturally inclined to exploit people, situations or circumstances. Some of the people around me however, their minds immediately alighted on the potential and began joking about what they could do.. blackmail to major websites and crap like that.
Either it strikes you as horrifyingly wrong and against everything that gives life meaning, or it doesn't. It's as simple as that.
If you look at the biographies of people in corporations and organizations who Do Evil, you may come to the conclusion that graduating from elite universities and following other societally sanctioned pathways to power does not in any way filter out sociopaths, it just filters out a certain kind of disorganized, irresponsible sociopath. The ones that emerge from these pathways are super-charged, in deep cover and are basicaly responsible for most of the real, intractable, structural badness in our society.
This is part of the reason the Government's NSA exploits and attitudes towards our privacy are so threatening to people. The technology is fearsome, the sociopath sieve, very far from effective.
...because that guy calls me a couple of times a month from all over the country about how I'm in trouble with the IRS, and they'll sick the local police on me shortly if I don't send them thousands of dollars, presumably by Western Union or in gift cards.
There's still a long way to go for this country but, damn it, we're now in a position where African-Americans are in position to commit, and get convicted of, White Collar crimes. Just 30 years ago this crime of opportunity would have been almost exclusively available to privileged whites only. Dr. King's dream is one step closer to becoming reality.
When you trust nigers.
He did his job. Duh.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
> Nakeisha Hall
That's the name of a negress. She is genetically pre-determined to be a criminal because dark skin colour gene implies the high-crime gene. Had she been born in Nigeria you would hear about her as a 419 scammer princess.
> I had an in-law that lived a life of crime ... He was an Italian-American ... Oddly he was even a bit religious and often went to church...
( ... and his name was Vito di Corleone but most everybody called him Don and begged him to be godfather to their children... )
Seriously, what a moron you must be to associate yourself with italian mafioso? Be glad you didn't end up sleeping under concrete! The breaker, the fencer, those "legitimate businesses" 100% surely all belonged to the same extended italian family of very devoted catholics (... and probably some very devoted irish catholic FBI agents were trying to hunt down that octopus of crime at the same time.)
It is not just the agent, the entire agency is a fucking scam
The truth is, the government can exempt itself from what few data laws private businesses have to obey, with predictable results. Who watches the watchers? What happened to the bilked taxpayers who complained their refund was missing? The international image of the US IRS makes them akin to secret police who can enforce whatever rules they like: The fact they're enacting civil forfeiture laws against small businesses using 'too much' cash confirms this perspective. I suspect the truth to be much worse.
WOW...I can't believe it. This could not have happened!
Tthe king would not allow the IRS to perpetrate fraud!
Nor would he permit the IRS to target anyone whose political leanings where presumed to be "offensive" to his beliefs.
This story is a non-starter... Did anyone check Snopes to see if it was true?
An affirmative action government hire is caught entrenched in corruption and theft. Who is even surprised any more?
http://i.cubeupload.com/T6cyLu.png
You could simplify the ridiculously complicated tax code, which wouldn't require a small army of civil servants to manage anymore, increase the salaries of those left, and they'll never consider fraud in the first place.
There problem solved. No left wing agenda required. I'll take my lucrative civil servant job now in payment.
Of course a simplified tax code wouldn't let you hide tax breaks for the wealthy, so I guess that is a bit leftist.