A new report from the Federal Trade Commission shows that the explosion in tax fraud related identity theft eclipsed the growth in all other consumer gripes during 2012. Last year, total complaints logged by the FTC’s “Sentinel Network” about everything other than identity theft—meaning everything from debt collection to cell phone companies to counterfeit check scams– rose less than 5%, to 1.69 million. But tax related identity theft complaints more than doubled to 160,000. Fraudsters use stolen Social Security numbers and phony W-2s and 1099s to apply for—and often get—big refunds from the Internal Revenue Service. Meanwhile, the real taxpayers are left waiting months for their refunds and wasting untold hours trying to sort the mess out. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest