Suitably Flip

Q: What's Worse Than Paying Your Taxes?

A: Paying someone else's taxes.

Identity theft is one thing.  But this is just plain mean.

The latest version of identity theft is popping up as people are being asked to pay taxes on money someone else is making using your name.

Someone steals your identity, but instead of getting credit cards in your name, they are getting a job on a contract basis. This time of year, you discover this type of crime because 1099s begin showing up in your mailbox..

The Internal Revenue Service thinks you made the money and now you need to pay the taxes. It's happening in Green Country.

"We had one consumer who got the first one and the name was misspelled, so he thought it was just a mistake," says Rick Brinkley with the Tulsa Better Business Bureau. "And, he did nothing. Then, the next week, another one shows up, then another and another."

I know what you're saying to yourself.  "Don't worry, Self," you say, "we check our credit report regularly and we even installed one of those credit watching services that alerts us any time someone runs a credit check on us."

Unfortunately, you're only fooling yourself.  This scam has no credit report impact.  The only defense is to watch carefully for unexpected 1099s (though it seems easy enough for a fraudster to change his address of record with his employer after landing the job).

Worse still, even if you do intercept the tax records, the burden of proof is on you to convince the IRS you've been defrauded.

Happy tax season!

Comments

Q: What's Worse Than Paying Your Taxes?

A: Paying someone else's taxes.

Identity theft is one thing.  But this is just plain mean.

The latest version of identity theft is popping up as people are being asked to pay taxes on money someone else is making using your name.

Someone steals your identity, but instead of getting credit cards in your name, they are getting a job on a contract basis. This time of year, you discover this type of crime because 1099s begin showing up in your mailbox..

The Internal Revenue Service thinks you made the money and now you need to pay the taxes. It's happening in Green Country.

"We had one consumer who got the first one and the name was misspelled, so he thought it was just a mistake," says Rick Brinkley with the Tulsa Better Business Bureau. "And, he did nothing. Then, the next week, another one shows up, then another and another."

I know what you're saying to yourself.  "Don't worry, Self," you say, "we check our credit report regularly and we even installed one of those credit watching services that alerts us any time someone runs a credit check on us."

Unfortunately, you're only fooling yourself.  This scam has no credit report impact.  The only defense is to watch carefully for unexpected 1099s (though it seems easy enough for a fraudster to change his address of record with his employer after landing the job).

Worse still, even if you do intercept the tax records, the burden of proof is on you to convince the IRS you've been defrauded.

Happy tax season!