Having No Fun With The IRS

There are multiple stories of tax time problems and issues.  With each tale we hear more of the difficulties that the victim goes through.  The outraged cries of why does this happen ring across the country.  There must be a way to protect myself and my family from this kind of identity theft!

Time for a reality check. The IRS system is designed to collect tax monies from employers and then refund the over collection upon the delivery of a return.  They are not in the practice of validating the SSN with the person.  They operate on the simple belief that each of the tax returns they receive are valid because it would make the whole system collapse if they had to screen each for authenticity.  With the hundreds of fraudulent returns that are reported last year or this, there are millions of valid returns.  Imagine trying to validate millions of returns, as fast as possible so you can generate the return and get it to the proper party.

One of the largest problems could be solved by combining the data of the SSA with IRS. The problem is by combining those two organizations you will be one large step closer to George Orwell’s 1984 society.  The more information in one place, under the control of one large government agency, the greater the chance of it being misused.  It is a very fine line to walk between effective and the issue of big brother.

There will be many conversations within and around the parties concerned about this problem before we start seeing changes.  For me that is a comforting thought because it is change that is not thought out that sparks new problems.