IRS Warns Tax Info Leaked By US Financial Aid Site (cnn.com)

"Hackers accessed the data of up to 100,000 people through a tool that helps students get financial aid," writes CNN. An anonymous reader quotes their report: IRS Commissioner John Koskinen testified before the Senate Finance Committee Thursday that a breach had been discovered in the fall. In September, he said, his agency discovered that fraudsters could use someone's personal data to fill out a financial aid application, and the "Data Retrieval Tool" would populate the application with tax information. That information could be used to file false tax returns. The commissioner said fewer than 8,000 of these returns were processed, and refunds were issued totaling $30 million...

In October, the IRS told the Department of Education that the system could be abused by criminals, but because up to 15 million people use the system for convenience, they kept it available. However, in February, the agency witnessed a pattern of fraudulent activity, and it shut down the automated tool in March.
Now financial aid seekers will have to manually enter their parents' reported income from previous tax years -- at least until a new version of the tool comes online next October. In the meantime, the IRS is alerting 100,000 users who started an application but didn't finish it, warning them that their tax information may have been compromised.

Comments

income tax? what income??

[Anonymous Coward]

I would very much like to pay taxes again but I have no income ever since I was left behind by the great layoffs of the great recession. Unemployed is unemployable but why should that be when the unemployed could be paying taxes. Somebody tell trump to incentivize companies to get the jobless back into the workforce because think of the tax revenues!

Re:income tax? what income??

[Anonymous Coward]

It's just you. Nobody wants you. Fuck off and die.

So-called privacy advocates

[Anonymous Coward]

don't care about the IRS threat to privacy. Because government money and power come first.

Re:So-called privacy advocates

[Anonymous Coward]

Basic Inco,me gonna fix this!@

Communisk Now!a1!

Re:FUCK COLLEGE STUDENTS

[Anonymous Coward]

Assistant professor fell off the tenure track.

Why the f*ck did it display the data from the IRS?

[Anonymous Coward]

[Note: I worked on the FAFSA system but it was years ago when this type of integration was only spoken of seriously after way too many drinks]

There's no need for the person filling in the application (be they student or parent) to actually see the data that was retrieved from the IRS. It's used by the Dept. of Education to determine your eligibility. All the system need to do was ask for your SSN and for you to provide one or two values from a list of ten to verify that what the IRS provided matches what you think it's supposed to be... e.g. SSN, total taxable income and total federal tax (complete with 1040 line numbers to make sure the questions are clear). If the numbers don't match you prompt for them to enter all the data. There's no need for the system to ever display what the IRS provided. Besides the potential for identity theft it just adds more complexity to the system that doesn't need to be there (and depending on your situation, a FASFA can actually be fairly complex to begin with).

Shame they screwed the pooch like this, one of the few Federal systems I was proud to have worked on. All in all it did it's job, it helped people (*) and it did it fairly well without costing an insane amount of money. That's pretty rare in Federal IT from my experience.

(*) I'm sure a lot of people will bring up the issue of student loans. FAFSA enabled that but its primary purpose was to match eligible students with free student aid (Pell Grants, etc). Please don't conflate DoEd/FAFSA with for-profit Universities (who proprietors should get an express ticket to "the special hell") or precious snowflakes who are pissed off their $150,000 degree in Sumerian basket weaving doesn't translate into a living wage.

Why do you keep getting refunds?

[Anonymous Coward]

As a non-american, could someone explain why you guys seem to go through the hassle of overpaying your tax during the year, then applying for and receiving a refund?

Rather than just, like, paying the correct amount to begin with? Like any sane tax collection regime would attempt?

Re:Why do you keep getting refunds?

[Anonymous Coward]

The laws keep changing every year, plus the tax brackets may change for you depending on any additional income you may collect and any personal/joint credits you may be able to apply. The withholding amounts for taxes are therefore kind of a game.

And generally employers do the withholding and distribution of taxes to the government for you, for a good portion of the employers in the nation. That way people don't tend to spend the money before it comes due to the state the following year. Don't forget, no one has any money in this country except the 1%, and everyone else is pretty eager to find something to do with that extra cash if it's lying around. It's our national duty to buy things to keep the economy going, after all.

Re:Why do you keep getting refunds?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because the IRS collects interest on money owed you... But you don't get that part back.

Re:Why do you keep getting refunds?

[Anonymous Coward]

The reason for tax refunds is "Freedom."

In theory, taxes are voluntary. Payments made during the year are estimates to be corrected by an annual tax return, when an accurate and voluntary self-assessment is reported. The taxpayer is entitled to a refund.

In practice, taxes are mandatory. An allegedly voluntary taxation process gives the IRS an excuse to perform audits and make charges of perjury.

Re:Why do you keep getting refunds?

[Anonymous Coward]

1. If you pay nothing until the end of the year, you get that interest from the bank.
2. If you pay during the year, IRS gets that interest.
3. If you pay too much, you get a refund.
4. If you pay too little, you get to write a nice fat check to IRS.

Option 1 is best if you can manage your money.
Option 3 is best if you can't manage your money.

Re:Why do you keep getting refunds?

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with Option 1 is the IRS will levy fines against you for paying too little. You have to pay enough to only owe at most $1000 or have paid 90% of what you owed last year.

Re:Why do you keep getting refunds?

[Anonymous Coward]

There are 3 main reasons:

1. Because you calculate your tax after the fact, and it depends very complexly and nonlinearly on a lot of factors, there is no way to accurately estimate how much tax you will owe ahead of time.

2. Even if you could estimate it accurately, the tax is typically sent in by your employer. The effort to change what your employer does is compicated, prone to error (if you underpay you are fined), and time-consuming. It is not usually worth the effort.

3. Most people don't really understand how the tax system works, so they just leave everything at default values, and that typically results in overpaying your taxes, because the default values are decided on by the govt to make sure that no one underpays.

Re:Why do you keep getting refunds?

[Agripa]

As a non-american, could someone explain why you guys seem to go through the hassle of overpaying your tax during the year, then applying for and receiving a refund?

Rather than just, like, paying the correct amount to begin with? Like any sane tax collection regime would attempt?

Because we are guilty until proven innocent.

Re:Why do you keep getting refunds?

[Anonymous Coward]

In the USA, determining the correct amount is very, very, very difficult. Even for people who know what they are doing. Let alone the rest of us. Most people would rather guess high and overpay than guess low and have to come up with even MORE money. Additionally, most working Americans aren't tax experts. As things change during the tax year, we don't get out our taxes and make week-by-week adjustments. We can be paying too much or too little as our situations change. Seriously, try doing an American tax return for a year and see how close you get!

Re:Why do you keep getting refunds?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sometimes, your circumstances change - like a job loss, or a windfall changes the tax you would owe. Sometimes you might be a crap saver, and prefer to have the money back in a lump sum to deposit safely (instead of in your pocket every month to get spent)

It Shouldn't Be Easy or Convenient to Apply

[Anonymous Coward]

One goal of the college admissions process is to weed out those who either aren't serious or aren't motivated. If you cannot be bothered to gather information, track down facts, fill out the applications and submit them on time then maybe you shouldn't be applying for higher education. What next? A "click here to get your degree" button? Would you like fries with that order? Scrap the damn "easy button" tools already.

Wow.

[Anonymous Coward]

And many of you freaking idiots want to have the government run healthcare, as well.

Well well well

[Ol Olsoc]

Why on earth should we be warned to not keep important information on our computers, and t protect them from hacking when these places give everyone's information away all at one time?

But fear not good citizens! We'll implement a system that is a real pain in the ass (for you) and give ourselves a internet security award, some promotions and a big pat on the back - until we give your data away the next time as well. That is all - back to what you were doing before we were inconvenienced.