The IRS has clamped down on issuing individual tax ID numbers recently. It appears that surprise!
The program was riddled with fraud, according to Treasury Dept. inspectors. Illegal’s who do not have Social Security numbers and are not eligible to get them have been able to obtain special ID numbers from IRS so they can handle their tax responsibilities. Or at least that was the plan, apparently they thought that these illegal individuals would play by the same rules of the law abiding people are required to follow.
But the IRS was incorrect in that assumption. Even to the point that the service discouraged employees from scrutinizing questionable applications. So with no safeguards in place many fraudulent ones slipped through, and surprise millions of dollars in phony refunds were paid out to these outstanding individuals.
So now for a slow backwards step applicants must now supply originals of birth certificates or passports, or copies certified by the issuing agency. Now Internal Revenue Service employees will continue working on this program will be trained on how to recognize falsified documents.
I think a great first step would be third party verification that tax dollars were received in the first place, via W-2’s from the companies matched to 941’s filed quarterly to tax deposits made every payroll. Do all of this before sending out money just because a form was sent in. But hey I’m just a CPA who has to make sure all of my business clients get all of their forms and funds in on a timely basis.
Now just a reminder to all who read this; I am a Chicago native and I believe that we have more illegal Polish and Irish immigrants than we have Mexican, but every one always assumes that when illegal’s are mentioned that one is referring to Mexican’s only. One also has to question what is INS doing these days, because addressing the whole illegal alien issue does not seem a priority to our government at any level.