Hackers May Have Already Filed Your Taxes For You And Stolen Your Return

Accountant Office

AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh

An unsettling number of medical professionals are finding themselves victims of tax fraud, reports Krebs On Security.

Here's how it works:

[T]hieves steal or purchase Social Security numbers and other data on consumers, and then electronically file fraudulent tax returns claiming a large refund. The thieves instruct the IRS to send the refund to a bank account that is tied to a prepaid debit card, which the fraudster can then use to withdraw cash at an ATM.

Once the hackers file the taxes and collect the cash with their prey none the wiser, well-intentioned victims who file taxes afterward are plunged into the position of having indirectly committed tax fraud.

Scott Colby of the New Hampshire Medical Society says that he's heard from 111 different area medical professionals who have had this happen this year, but New Hampshire is hardly alone here — Colby's heard similar stories coming from Arizona, Connecticut, Indiana, Maine, Michigan, North Carolina and Vermont. In his four years on the job, he says, "[T]his is the first time this issue has come across my desk."

Elaine Ellis Stone is director of communications for the North Carolina Medical Society, and she's likewise heard from "more than 100" medical professionals complaining about tax fraud committed in their names: "We've been getting a lot of calls from people who've experienced this scam. We don't yet know exactly why this type of crime is surfacing so much this year, but we haven't seen this kind of volume in years past."

Because so many people in the medical field are falling victim here, the speculation is that "the crimes may have been prompted by a data breach at some type of national organization that certifies or provides credentials for physicians." Krebs writes that "there may indeed have been some kind of breach of a physician database that fueled this year's fraud surge against doctors, but my hunch is that we might also see the same sorts of stats being gathered by state organizations focused on other professions. In other words, the incidence of this type of crime is likely off the charts this year."

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