Howdy,
Well, been filing my/our own taxes for many years; but received "the IRS LTR 4883C letter in the mail" for the most recent tax year.
The implied message (from online forums, etc.) is that this letter is a form of verification of a taxpayer
status related to possible identity theft.
The letter itself is a bit scary as it is very lite on what is taking place. Call a toll free phone number and "x"
number of questions will be asked relative to the current and prior year tax returns.
There are not many positive responses on the net about wait times on the phone, etc.; but no real details about
what type of info questions are asked to verify who I am to satisfy the request in the letter. No details are offered if I
don't comply with the requested phone call.
Anyone at this board have any experience with this request?
Thank you in advance for your replies.
Regards,
Catch
Comments
Regards,
Ted
https://www.irs.gov/Individuals/Employees/Understanding-Your-4883C-Letter
Thanks. I plan to do that very early in the morning to help avoid the reported + 1 hour wait times on the phone.
Regards,
Ted
When the IRS was hacked, they conveniently under estimated the number of affected taxpayers. The number started at 100,000, then went to 334,000 and was at 724,000 at the last report and growing. Usually off by at least a factor of 10.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/22/us/politics/irs-fights-back-against-house-republicans-attacks.html
Clearly privatization is the answer, bwahaha.
Well, apparently we are on/in the hack "list".
Not mentioned in the letter, but we will apparently receive a free year worth of Equifax monitoring. Crap, now our numbers will be in more files.
Will likely be trying the toll free phone number thing first.
IRS offices only have a "phone message" and a look-up feature via zip code to give an idea of what services they provide. There isn't anything definitive about this particular circumstance, as to whether they will do a face-to-face for corrective actions at an office. One must walk into the office door to discover a yes or no to the question.
Will keep this updated as to outcomes; although the time frame appears to have some length (as in weeks).
NOTE: this also triggered a similar letter from the state treasury office that was even more curious as to wording. The state letter arrived first and we couldn't figure what the state was attempting to verify or confirm; as nothing was noted as to the problem area, but only a request for more information regarding our state income tax return.
As the old adage goes: Your tax dollars at work!
Regards,
Catch
I have a credit freeze on and I don't get credit card applications or similar items.
So the IRS 2015 workaround caused more fraud instead of preventing it.
Thank you for this follow-up.
@FundStudent
Ha! Ya, what a deal, eh? I recall the initial hacks and a discussion about the "no more hacks tool". I read about this feature you note in your link and the whole thing seemed like a cost reduction program only...........
I don't quit understand how some of these folks think and/or know about electronic security.
NOTE: my background is partially involved in secure online data and related.
The sad part in particular is that our house is mostly a cash only house. Credit cards and related are only used for reservations and such. Have always been a low profile monetary person, but I do fully understand the vast amount of data that is available to whomever for any individual on the planet.
Well, read the NYT piece
I would not worry about having info w the credit agencies. You want that, believe me, so you can check and review it.
---The lady answered "IRS".
---I was asked two times, "Why are you calling this number?"
Answer both times........."its the phone number on the letter and the instruction."
I asked, "Do you want the control number shown on the letter?"
Reply: "No, All I need is your SS#"
I'm thinking, duh; this could be anyone's question.
The remainder of the 7 questions were very generic. I was expecting more defined
questions, as to; what is the dollar amount on line "x" from schedule or form "x" to more identify "me" and our tax return.
None of this left me with a good feeling of our personal information be well safeguarded.
We will receive a letter in 7-10 days with more details............duh? Okay !
Being legit or otherwise, I was not impressed with the whole process.
'Course, we may still get hacked by the same folks who are hacking the "central banks" internal money transfer system. I can almost imagine a notify from our money vendor........Dear Sir or Madam, uh; there is a problem with your account balance.
Hey, hang in there.
Catch
Now, you might think that a whole host of federal crimes are being committed by this kind of call, and that no criminal would ever ever go to this place, but several months later on the local evening news I happened to hear a reporter talking to an IRS official, describing a variety of these kind of calls, made by people posing as an IRS agent, cold-calling senior citizens and trying to shake them down in a rather aggressive way, and some who lived alone (usually with some degree of mental impairment) had already fallen prey to the scammers and had wired money to them.
Your calling them via a number received on what is clearly an IRS letter, that's different.
To clarify (based on my experience as an IRS VITA program manager), the IRS will NEVER PHONE YOU and ask for your SSN or any other information - they will only initiate contact with a letter.
But if you phone the IRS to make an inquiry or in response to an official notice, you may well be asked for your SSN. If you're clearly calling an IRS number then they already have your SSN and it's the best way they have to locate your records.
This is the IRS internal link related to the phone number on the received letter.
We have not received any phone calls, but are aware of the phone calls about seizures of property and that the FBI and/or local police will be contacted about failures to pay or related to prior year tax filings.
After spending several hours reading various forums from the past several years, regarding this IRS letter and the referenced phone number and why the letter was generated; I was comfortable that all of this was legitimate. Another aspect is a similar letter that was received several days before the IRS letter from our state's Treasury department with similar personal verification(s) request. The presumption being that this letter was generated from internal communication between the federal and state levels.
NOTE: we do not e-file
Any of this should make most folks a bit twitchy. I'm always more so critical of many things related to any type of "phishing". This comes from my background in secure data communications and my personal nature. I should have been a private detective in real life
@davidrmoran
You asked, "How should they have done it?"
Our last federal tax form was long form. There are numerous line number entries from any of these forms/schedules with particular dollar entries. At least 10 of these line entries could have been selected for exacting figures. Example: line "x" on schedule "x" indicates an "x" dollar value. Either party could use a back and forth for this to establish a "trust and verify". If someone else also or already had this select data, than I would have to assume we had been fully hacked for our data and it would already be too late for a fix.
Other thoughts about this may be triggered from further comments.
Thanking everyone, up to this point, for their thoughts and opinions on this complex subject.
Catch
Sorry being late to your discussion. Several of my co-workers who filed their tax return electronically got instead notification that someone else had already filed the tax return on their behalf. They have to take a number of step to make thing right, that include reporting to the IRS, credit agencies, police department, and others.
For those who file by paper form would received the paper notification from IRS as you did. Some recommended to use your local tax preparers so that they can handle this situation if it arises.
Thank you for the added info. We prepare our own taxes. Curious to find what type of follow-up documents or information we receive from the IRS (7-10 days) via mail.
For now, I recalled that there is special IRS site that you need to sign up to start getting your tax record straight. Also you need to inform your local police department on identify theft. There is addition action to freeze your credit record so that this ID theft cannot progress further. I will get you more info on this early next week. Hang in there.
We had somebody create a fake Pay Pal account in our name many years ago. Pay Pal notified us, thinking we had created duplicate accounts. The scammers (later found to be in China) were "selling" things to consumers and collecting $$ in our name. But the goods purchased were never delivered. Nice - Huh?
We filed a police report. We subscribed to Idendity Guard which we still have and like a lot. They monitor our account and notify us of any new activity. After you have a copy of a police report you can have one of the credit reporting agencies place a 7-year fraud alert on your credit files. (Less severe than a credit freeze). All that means is that the issuer of credit in your name must first take reasonable steps to verify your Idendity (like seeing a driver's license). It's common sense anyway.
(Catch, You do need to substantiate that your identity has been stolen to file the police report. Without seeing the letter from the IRS I'm not sure if that's actually the case here.)
Good luck and don't sweat it.
How to get your free annual credit report: http://www.experian.com/assistance/free-annual-credit-report.html
Credit fraud alerts and credit freezes: https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0279-extended-fraud-alerts-and-credit-freezes