Stop losing sleep over your tax situation. I'm Darrin Mish — a tax attorney in Tampa who's spent 32 years handling exactly this kind of problem. Here's what you need to know.
In light of the tragedy of more than 100,000 taxpayers’ identities stolen by cyber criminals from under the nose of the IRS, many are seeing an ominous parallel with what happened during the sub-prime mortgage crisis in October 2008. Back then, Warren Buffet made an observation that the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) should shoulder most of the blame for what happened because they were too lax in regulating and overseeing Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, the two government sponsored enterprises at the center of the crisis.
So is history repeating itself here with the IRS? Last week, the IRS admitted that more than 100,000 identities of taxpayers were stolen when scammers hacked the IRS website. This comes despite many warnings by the Treasury Department regarding the dangers posed by scammers who easily exploit the system to fraudulently claim tax refund checks of innocent taxpayers. Just like how easy it was for even those who did not qualify for a bank loan to obtain financing because of Freddie and Fannie, it’s just as easy for common criminals to steal tax refund checks by masquerading as their victim.
Read more about how the IRS breach shows we’re at the mercy of the Federal government’s incompetence.
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