When an Alabama man dreamed up a way to make a little money on the side, he went straight to a captive audience: the prisoners in the Troy city jail.
Devon Tucker, a former jailer, pleaded guilty earlier this year to one count of conspiracy and one count of aggravated identity theft in a scheme involving nearly 150 individuals. Over the course of a year, Tucker stole the personal identification from those individuals being processed into the jail. He then turned that information over to his co-conspirators who filed bogus federal income tax returns using that information. Tucker was paid in pre-paid debit cards for his efforts.
It’s not an uncommon scheme – using stolen identities to file bogus tax returns – and one that Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has made a priority to end. In addition to criminal investigations like this one, IRS has established new guidelines for direct deposit of tax refunds and worked with law enforcement and FinCEN to implement new, targeted measures at certain check cashing establishments. IRS has also switched positions and will now provide victims of identity theft with copies of the fraudulent tax returns filed using their personal and financial information (previously, victims were notified that some or all of their information had been used to file fraudulent returns but no further information was made available).
In addition, in June, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Commissioner John Koskinen, leading tax partners and state tax administrators announced new steps to protect taxpayers from identity theft tax fraud, including a collaborative effort between public and private sectors to protect taxpayers and their tax returns. Participants from the tax industry who have been involved in those efforts include Intuit, H&R Block, Jackson Hewitt, Refund Advantage, Tax Act, JoAnn Kintzel, Thomson Reuters, Liberty Tax, FileYourTaxes.com, Wolters Kluwer, and Green Dot.
Despite ramped up efforts, crooks are still finding a way to file returns using stolen identities, often through organizations and agencies. Over the past year, identities have been stolen and allegedly used to commit tax fraud through the U.S. Postal Service, medical insurance companies, and Veteran’s hospitals. Law enforcement is hopeful that aggressive enforcement will stem some of the fraud.
“The Tax Division will vigorously pursue and prosecute government employees who abuse their positions by exploiting their access to personal information to victimize members of the community and steal from the U.S. Treasury,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Ciraolo.
Ciraolo was speaking at Tucker’s sentencing. After a guilty plea, Tucker was sentenced to serve 32 months in prison with three years of supervised release. He was also ordered to pay $13,162 in restitution to the IRS.
