Megan Wiebold reports:
Dozens of employees of a Rusk County business say they’ve been victims of identity theft.
The sheriff’s department says current and former Weather Shield employees have tried to file their tax returns, only to learn someone else, who they didn’t know, already had filed under their name.
[…]
This isn’t the first time Weather Shield employees have been the victims of fraud. Last April, the company warned that thieves were targeting the company’s employees, and stealing their identity through state and federal tax returns. Now, it appears it’s happening again.
“We are working with the IRS right now trying to find out why it’s happening, how it’s happening and who’s involved,” Sheriff Kaminski says.
Read more on WQOW.
So what happened when the Secret Service was called in last year? Were the employees whose identities were stolen recently employed there last April, or does this indicate a new rash of data theft?
Tax Refund Fraud up 400% !
In 2010, the IRS was able to identify and remove almost 49,000 bad returns seeking fraudulent refunds of $247 million directly related to identity theft. Last year, it removed from processing almost 262,000 returns
Quick answer? File your tax return asap after you receive your W2’s.