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Crime Security

IRS Programmer Stole Identities, Funded A Two-Year Shopping Spree (qz.com) 91

Posted by EditorDavid from the borrowed-money-borrowed-time dept.
A computer programmer at America's tax-collecting agency "stole multiple people's identities, and used them to open illicit credit cards to fund vacations and shop for shoes and other goods," write Quartz, citing a complaint unsealed last week in federal court.

An anonymous reader quotes their report: The complaint accuses the 35-year-old federal worker of racking up almost $70,000 in charges over the course of two years, illegally using "the true names, addresses, dates of birth, and Social Security numbers" of at least three people.

The US Treasury Department's Inspector General for Tax Administration, which oversees internal wrongdoing at the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), is investigating the crime, although the complaint doesn't specify how the employee obtained the information. The arrest, however, comes just months after the Government Accountability Office -- the federal government's auditor, essentially -- issued a report raising concerns about the security of taxpayer information held at the IRS. The report said that unaddressed shortcomings left taxpayer data "unnecessarily vulnerable to inappropriate and undetected use, modification, or disclosure," which could allow employees or outsiders to illegally access millions of people's personal information. An IRS call center employee in Atlanta pleaded guilty last year to illegally using taxpayer data to file fraudulent tax returns, ultimately collecting almost $6,000. In 2016, another IRS worker in Atlanta admitted to improperly accessing the personal information of two taxpayers, amassing close to half a million dollars from illicit tax refunds....

The IRS employee's alleged scheme took place between January 2016 and February 2018, according to court filings. Investigators say he used a fraudulently obtained American Express card to fly to Sacramento and Miami Beach. He also used the card for some 37 Uber rides, nine payments on his father's Amazon account totaling $1,200, various purchases at Lowe's, the Designer Shoe Warehouse, BJ's Wholesale Club, and a flooring outlet, as well as a $7,400 payment to a business he owned. The complaint says the employee, who works for the tax agency as a software developer, obtained a second fraudulent credit card, which he used to fly to Montego Bay, Jamaica. A third fraudulent card was used to travel to Iceland.

In a particularly brazen move, investigators say the suspect linked this card to a phony PayPal account he opened using his official IRS email address.
Two of the credit cards were delivered to his home address, while a third was sent to his parents' address, according to the article. "The phone numbers listed on the accounts also belonged to the suspect, and he accessed emails associated with the accounts from his home IP address."
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IRS Programmer Stole Identities, Funded A Two-Year Shopping Spree More

IRS Programmer Stole Identities, Funded A Two-Year Shopping Spree

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  • Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Sunday October 13, 2019 @10:46AM (#59303042)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • no, its extortion or perhaps a protection racket.

    • Re:Taxation (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Freischutz ( 4776131 ) on Sunday October 13, 2019 @11:01AM (#59303096)

      Taxation is theft!

      You know, if somebody waived a magic wand and made it possible for people to opt out of paying taxes, I bet you'd be at the head of the queue. The next day after opting out of paying taxes I'm also pretty sure that you'd feel perfectly entitled to drive on taxpayer funded roads, cross rivers on taxpayer funded bridges, go on vacation from taxpayer funded airports, receive goods via taxpayer funded harbors, bring your kids to taxpayer funded hospitals, educate them in taxpayer funded schools, make use of taxpayer funded police services, call the taxpayer funded fire brigade when your house catches fire, and when the Chinese invade I bet you'd feel entitled to be protected by the taxpayer funded military. Taxation is a membership fee, you can argue about how much you are supposed to pay and how the money is spent but the general principle of everybody chipping in their fair share to pay for public services is pretty hard to get along without if you want to run a civilzation. There should be a reality show where people who shout crap like this get their taxes paid by some TV channel in exchange for them actually going a year without using anything, anything at all that is funded by the taxpayer and that they currently take for granted. I generally despise reality TV shows but that one I'd be glad to watch.

      Oh, and next time, please don't start your post in the subject line and continue it in the comment body, it's bloody annoying to read.

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • Your snotty little screed above presumes that just because some good or service is funded with stolen money today, that it can't be provided by vendors in a free market. This is not the case.

          -jcr

          Really? There would a privately operated alternative road network in the US for people who don't want to pay taxes? ... well, I expect there would be a dozen of them at least to to ensure fierce free market competition so you can pick which of the twelve competing roads from where it is you are to wherever you are going offers the lowest rates today. Like I said, I'd get a major kick out of watching bozos like you put your money where your mouth is and actually go for a year without using any taxpayer funde

          • Really? There would a privately operated alternative road network in the US for people who don't want to pay taxes?

            Private toll roads exist, and modern tech such as RFID makes them work well. Usage fees based on mileage and vehicle weight would be more fair that what we do now.

            But the road network is not the place to start. There are far sillier things the government does. Do we really need the government to be running an advertising and package delivery service?

            • Re:Taxation (Score:5, Insightful)

              by hondo77 ( 324058 ) on Sunday October 13, 2019 @01:07PM (#59303410) Homepage

              Do we really need the government to be running an advertising and package delivery service?

              You do if you want those letters and packages delivered to towns and unincorporated areas that private enterprise won't go to because they're not profitable enough.

              • You do if you want those letters and packages delivered to towns and unincorporated areas that private enterprise won't go to because they're not profitable enough.

                The obvious solution is to charge what it costs to deliver.

                For packages over a few ounces, the postal service already charges different rates based on destination.

                If you choose to live in a remote location, why should other people subsidize your lifestyle choice?

                Sweden, Denmark, Finland, and Germany have all privatized their postal services. Yet somehow their civilizations failed to collapse.

                • Re:Taxation (Score:5, Interesting)

                  by Freischutz ( 4776131 ) on Sunday October 13, 2019 @02:19PM (#59303594)

                  You do if you want those letters and packages delivered to towns and unincorporated areas that private enterprise won't go to because they're not profitable enough.

                  The obvious solution is to charge what it costs to deliver.

                  For packages over a few ounces, the postal service already charges different rates based on destination.

                  If you choose to live in a remote location, why should other people subsidize your lifestyle choice?

                  That's a question people in blue states ask themselves every day. Why should they subsidise the red states because except for Texas the red states are all subsidised with blue stat tax money. By asking that question you have basically launched a frontal assault on the voter base of Donald Trump and the entire Republican party ... I wish you lots of luck with that.

                  • That's a question people in blue states ask themselves every day.

                    If they don't like Big Government, then the obvious solution is to stop voting for it.

                    you have basically launched a frontal assault on the voter base of Donald Trump and the entire Republican party ...

                    No. This is a myth.

                    It is true that blue states subsidize red states. But when you look more closely, it is really high income people in blue states, who mostly vote red, subsidizing poor people in red states, who mostly vote blue.

                    So red voters in blue states subsidize blue voters in red states.

                    • So red voters in blue states subsidize blue voters in red states.

                      You just made that up.
                      Although it does kind of sound like a Fox News talking point, so maybe you're just a useful idiot.

            • The whole "pay as you go" thing is a poor way to do things like roads and public services.

              Did you pay your firehouse fee this month? If not, let's hope it doesn't catch fire.

              If it does catch fire let's hope you paid your ambulance fee, the emergency room fee, the after-hours-doctor fee, etc etc.

              I also hope the ambulance doesn't have to stop and pay a toll on the way to saving you or a family member's life.

              • Did you pay your firehouse fee this month? If not, let's hope it doesn't catch fire.

                Many jurisdictions have privately run fire services. They usually work well, and cost less. They have no access to the trough of public money, so they look for cost effective solutions, such as using on-call volunteers in individual neighborhoods.

                Given these two choices when your kitchen catches fire:
                1. 15 minutes after you call, a crew of 10 shows up with an $800,000 pumper truck.
                2. 2 minutes after you call, a guy with a fire extinguisher and hose shows up in his pickup truck.
                Which is more likely to pre

                • Many jurisdictions have privately run fire services.

                  And what about those that don't?

                  15 minutes after you call, a crew of 10 shows up with an $800,000 pumper truck.

                  For the vast majority of the United States, fire response is way less than 10 minutes real time.

                  From NFPA documents: The NFPA released the original 1710 standard in 2001. The goal was to reduce fire deaths and property loss by organizing deployment in fire suppression and EMS operations. Today NFPA 1710-5.2.4.1.1 states, “The fire department’s fire suppression resources shall be deployed to provide for the arrival of an engine company within a 240-second travel ti

        • Fed reserve-created money to allow deficit spending is already theft via inflation. Of course, much of the profit goes to the owning banks. Remember that Ford quote, roughly "If the people understood how the banking system worked, there'd be a revolt tomorrow" or words to that effect? Clearly the above screed is selling an untruth - that our taxes are anything but a means of control. When the government spends this money, they get full value - but as it hits circulation the money we hold is worth less a

        • Your snotty little screed above presumes that just because some good or service is funded with stolen money today, that it can't be provided by vendors in a free market.

          LOL, the 'free-market' fantasy bullshit again...I knew this would pop up sooner or later.

          News flash- there is no "free market" and there never has been. There never will be.

          The "free market" is like a "perfect sphere"- they don't exist.

          If libertarianism is so great and workable, why are there no libertarian societies? Why is that?

          • The "free market" is like a "perfect sphere"- they don't exist.

            Nothing is absolute. You can't get to absolute zero Kelvin. But that doesn't mean Minnesota isn't colder than Florida.

            Likewise, there is no perfect free market, but there are plenty of markets that are free enough to show that competition is better than cronyism and monopolies.

            If libertarianism is so great and workable, why are there no libertarian societies?

            Because nothing is absolute. There is no society that is perfectly libertarian, or perfectly progressive, or perfectly communist. But there are enough societies that approach each of those ideals that the pros and cons of each can

            • ...competition is better than cronyism and monopolies.

              Yes, and no one is arguing that it isn't.

              There is no society that is perfectly libertarian, or perfectly progressive, or perfectly communist. But there are enough societies that approach each of those ideals that the pros and cons of each can be seen.

              Name some societies that approach the libertarian ideal.

              • Name some societies that approach the libertarian ideal.

                America is much closer to a libertarian society than most countries, and our federal system means that some states can be more libertarian than others. New Hampshire is the most libertarian. California (where I live) and the Northeast are the least.

                Singapore is even closer, at least in terms of economic policy (although not social freedoms).

                Somalia is also fairly libertarian, although it is becoming less so as the central government in Mogadishu is reasserting control. But taxes are nearly nonexistent,

                • America is much closer to a libertarian society than most countries, and our federal system means that some states can be more libertarian than others.

                  LOL, no.
                  America in no way resembles any sort of libertarian society unless you're wealthy, in which case you can claim anything you want about it.

                  -

                  New Hampshire is the most libertarian. California (where I live) and the Northeast are the least.

                  Singapore is even closer, at least in terms of economic policy (although not social freedoms).

                  You seem to be saying that there are no libertarian societies. But that aside, why aren't you living in New Hampshire? Nothing is stopping you from going there. And not to quibble too much, but New Hampshire is about as "Northeast" as you can get. How is it the most libertarian state while simultaneously being situated in the least libertarian part of the US. (??

            • If libertarianism is so great and workable, why are there no libertarian societies?

              Because nothing is absolute. There is no society that is perfectly libertarian, or perfectly progressive, or perfectly communist. But there are enough societies that approach each of those ideals that the pros and cons of each can be seen.

              Excuses, excuses, ... if libertarianism was workable it would be a popular and dominant form of society by now by virtue of simple Darwinism.

      • Interesting list (Score:3, Interesting)

        by raymorris ( 2726007 )

        * drive on taxpayer funded roads

        Roads are good. I just drove on a city road, next to a state highway.

        * cross rivers on taxpayer funded bridges

        The bridge I just drove across is part of the city road.
        Unfortunately, after they built the bridge, they spent almost as much building two decorative towers in the middle of it. I wish I had been at the meeting at city Hall where that was discussed.

        * go on vacation from taxpayer funded airports

        Airports are required by law to be self-funding through fees dire

      • Mod parent up!

        Very well said and I hope you don't mind if I copy this.

        I've always said "we're all in this together" and we all have to pay for the structural components of society.

        Sometimes that means we'll pay for things we personally don't use or benefit from, or maybe even vehemently oppose, but it is what it is. Taxes are how things get funded, it's how the services that our society uses are built and maintained.

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • If you believe what you just wrote, why not move to Somalia or Nigeria? It would be your paradise on Earth. But you don't really believe a word of what you wrote, do you?

      The problem most libertarians have is they never think that they'll be the ones getting fucked. It's never YOUR wife or YOUR child who'll die from some untested medication or contaminated food or an unsafe electrical appliance. It'll always be the other guy whose wife or kid dies, and then the Magical Invisible Hand Of The

  • The IRS needs to modernize!!! (Score:5, Informative)

    by Futurepower(R) ( 558542 ) on Sunday October 13, 2019 @10:46AM (#59303044) Homepage
    The IRS needs to modernize!!! These seem to be some of the best articles:

    The IRS Really Needs Some New Computers [bloomberg.com] (April 17, 2018) "The tax agency's embrace of IBM in the 1950s helped drive down audit rates. It's still depending on the same code."

    IRS says it's using technology from JFK's time [cnn.com] (Feb. 3, 2015)

    TurboTax, H&R Block Spend Big Bucks Lobbying for Us to Keep Doing Our Own Taxes [nbcnews.com] (March 23, 2017)

    How the IRS Was Gutted [propublica.org] (Dec. 11, 2018) "An eight-year campaign to slash the agency's budget has left it understaffed, hamstrung and operating with archaic equipment. The result: billions less to fund the government. That's good news for corporations and the wealthy."

    Who's More Likely to Be Audited: A Person Making $20,000 -- or $400,000? [propublica.org] (Dec. 12, 2018) "If you claim the earned income tax credit, whose average recipient makes less than $20,000 a year, you're more likely to face IRS scrutiny than someone making twenty times as much. How a benefit for the working poor was turned against them."

    After Budget Cuts, the IRS' Work Against Tax Cheats Is Facing "Collapse" [propublica.org] (Oct. 1, 2018) "Audits and criminal referrals are down sharply since Congress cut the tax agency's budget and management changed priorities."

    There are much earlier reports about IRS under-management: Internal Revenue Service is a den of thieves. [bizjournals.com] (April 2, 2000. Not a "den of thieves", just terribly undermanaged, apparently.) "The GAO audit compared the agency to someone who can't balance his or her checkbook and instead just adjusts it to agree with the bank statement."

    • Re:The IRS needs to modernize!!! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by hey! ( 33014 ) on Sunday October 13, 2019 @11:42AM (#59303228) Homepage Journal

      When people hear "audit", they think of a kind of inquisition where a bureaucrat takes a deep and unrestricted dive into every aspect of their financial lives. This kind of audit, a "Taxpayer Compliance Measurement Program" is in fact very rare.

      Most audits are not a big deal; 75% of audits consist of the IRS sending someone a letter requesting an explanation of some line on their return. In a majority of the face-to-face audits the auditor is investigating a single red flag; he is not even allowed to go on a fishing expedition through your return.

      As for the small number of TCMP "audits from hell", even those are usually no big deal. A friend of mine used to be an IRS auditor, and he says that most people not only have nothing to hide, they have no means to hide anything. It's only if you own assets that can be used to launder money or shelter income when things get complicated, and people who have those things also have accountants that work for them.

      The one consistent theme over the last 30 years in tax policy is to shift the tax burden onto the middle class. Fearmongering about auditors is part of that. Cutting auditors allows maybe 1% of taxpayers to hide income. This means everyone else pays more.

  • Must be some tough hiring standards at the IRS. This guy was smart enough to send fraudulent cards directly to himself and his parents, and tied them to his work email - pure genius. This is why we do our own taxes rather than just getting a bill or check from the IRS - I sure trust their software a lot less now.

    • If signature required, pay a bum $3 to sign. Send to some other address. Activate from a pay phone. Only draw the cash advance from ATMs.

      That's how you do this.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by hey! ( 33014 )

      I think this may well be indicative of the employee's perception of how likely he was to be caught.

      Over the past ten years the IRS budget has been cut by about 15%; IRS staffing has shrunk, and not because of automation. It is an understaffed agency with low morale and little oversight.

      This is a bad situation that is about to get worse: about 1/3 of the IRS workforce is nearing retirement age. This will put the agency into a crisis where it will neither be able to crack down on tax evaders, nor will it b

    • You're saying that Kwashie Senam Zilevu is not brilliant?

      What are you? a racist?!

      j/k

  • sell the most infamous tax return information

    • I remember reading somewhere that the returns of high-profile people are restricted, so that rank-and-file IRS employees can't access them.

      No idea where I read it, so take with significant salt.

      • They're not merely restricted, attempting to look them up will flag your accesses for FBI investigation. Even if you have access, it is still flagged and there is a team that will investigate your access.

        This was in the news around 15 years ago when a couple idiots looked up some politician's files outside of any legit investigation.

    • He.

  • Crypto backdoors (Score:5, Interesting)

    by dbrueck ( 1872018 ) on Sunday October 13, 2019 @11:08AM (#59303116)

    I know this isn't directly related to the issue of for-gov't-only backdoors in encryption, but this is yet another reason why those backdoors are such a bad idea: even if they did somehow ensure that only the government had the magical key to access encrypted traffic, it still doesn't protect against things like this.

  • Identity is an abstract concept. "Stealing your identity" makes as much sense as "stealing your soul." The crime here is fraud, plain and simple.

  • The most funniest part of this is that he didn't think he'd get caught. You gotta admit- that's some comedy gold right there.

    He's no different than the guy who holds up a store where he's been a customer for years. "They'll never recognize me if I wear a hat AND sunglasses!"

    Even if he'd taken some serious precautions to conceal his identity and his connections to the crimes (which he didn't), he still would have almost certainly been caught. In the law enforcement world this dude is low-hanging fruit.

  • "Maybe we should have the IRS as a blockchain, I trust the math of the blockchain, far more than I trust the math of the blockheads that control the IRS." ~Blockchain Crypto Anarchist

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by gl00pp ( 970649 )
      I think stuff like this will eventually go to blockchain. It just makes the most sense. You can track everything. Should make auditing way easier and exact. Same with our data. Imagine being able to authorize certain aspects of your ID. For example allowing Slashdot to know you are in a specific state and town but not your age. Could all be done with blockchain.

  • Shit like this... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Chas ( 5144 ) on Sunday October 13, 2019 @01:55PM (#59303524) Homepage Journal

    Is why SSN was NEVER meant to be used as an identifier for ANYTHING outside of your SocSec account.

  • What a waste.. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Vegan Cyclist ( 1650427 ) on Sunday October 13, 2019 @02:17PM (#59303592) Homepage

    If someone in there leaked Trump's taxes, they'd be declared a national hero..

  • In a particularly brazen move, investigators say the suspect linked this card to a phony PayPal account he opened using his official IRS email address.

    Some say "brazen" others say "dumb".

  • 70k, that's it? He should be ashamed of himself. He still has to defend against the same charges, that had he been effective in his criminality and amassed a few million bucks, he'd be able to defend himself against those charges. Now, he's fucked without any leverage or reason not to be punished to the full extent of the law. And without decent representation.

    Moral of the story is, if you cross the line to commit a criminal act, make sure it is significantly worth it and you've factored in the whole cost o

  • Purchasing airline tickets with fraudulent credit cards? And then "Two of the credit cards were delivered to his home address, while a third was sent to his parents' address"... and "the suspect linked this card to a phony PayPal account he opened using his official IRS email address."

    I am very worried that he was a "software developer" for the IRS. Somebody this dumb should not be writing software for anybody. Maybe a business that develops fart apps. But IRS? No!

    • Your tax dollars at work. I bet you can drive a Mack truck through those security holes. Being as surly as they are they won't give a shit, and when they do get pwned, they will pull a CYA and do a half assed job patching the holes. Rinse and repeat.

  • When a government employee is found guilty something like this, make it an automatic 30 year sentence without parole. Force them to wear a Hannibal Lecter mask and be in full restraints during the sentencing phase, and have it televised live.

    And no country club prison either. PMITA prison for them, general population, with the murderers, rapists, and street gangs.

    I know many people would rather they were put to death, but death is way too easy. They need to live, and suffer, and be prevente

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