Yet Another IRS Employee Uses Agency Data To Steal Taxpayers' Identities

Reason

In what is becoming something of a popular in-house side business, an Internal Revenue Service employee in Kentucky allegedly accessed the tax collection agency's databases, the better to harvest personal information and steal identities. The swiped names and data were then used to drain money from the real folks' Social Security benefits. Then the IRS employee and her partner got caught.

From Accounting Today:

A financial technician who worked in a Boone County, Ky., office of the Internal Revenue Service has been charged with multiple crimes relating to her unauthorized access of an IRS computer to obtain personal information about taxpayers.

The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Kentucky said Friday that on July 18, 2013, a federal grand jury returned a sealed indictment against Joy Fox, 32, of Independence, Ky. The indictment, which was unsealed Friday, charges Fox with eight counts of intentionally exceeding her authorized access to an IRS computer, for the purpose of improperly obtaining personal identifying information of taxpayers. She was also charged with three counts of mail fraud and three counts of aggravated identity theft in relation to the mail fraud.

According to the indictment, another individual, Patrick Sharpe, 23, of Tallahassee, Fla., was charged as a co-defendant in the case. Sharpe and Fox allegedly used the personal identifying information of taxpayers to obtain online prepaid debit cards, in taxpayers' names, and then attempted to fund the cards using the taxpayers' Social Security benefits. Once the cards were approved, the defendants caused the cards to be mailed to addresses in Kentucky. Fox and Sharpe are also charged with conspiracy to file a false claim for a tax refund.

Avid players of "what's the government doing with my personal information, today?" may remember that another IRS employee was sentenced last year to 105 months in prison for filing $8 million in bogus returns with similarly stolen information. There's no particular reason you have to work for the IRS to engage in this sort of criminal activity, however; the agency has posted the Social Security numbers of tens of thousands of Americans on public Websites, for anybody to peruse. It was available until just weeks ago.

Beyond taxes, the IRS is heavily involved in implementing Obamacare, under the direction of Sarah Hall Ingram, who served as commissioner of the office responsible for tax-exempt organizations during the time when tea party groups received extra-special scrutiny of a rather obviously politicized nature. Given their own history, who can blame IRS employees for wanting out of a health care program that they themselves will be overseeing?

A s for Joy Fox…You have to wonder how many similar creative uses of IRS data haven't been caught.

Follow this story and more at Reason 24/7.

Spice up your blog or Website with Reason 24/7 news and Reason articles. You can get the widgets here. If you have a story that would be of interest to Reason's readers please let us know by emailing the 24/7 crew at [e-mail], or tweet us stories at @reason247.

Comments

[Pro Libertate]

I'd say a massive investigation of the entire agency is more than in order.

[Brian D]

The government should create an agency to investigate other agencies.

[Pro Libertate]

The Censor?

[Episiarch]

It has one: the FBI. And that didn't work out too well, did it.

[Pro Libertate]

Yeah, that's a fucking joke, isn't it?

It speaks volumes that we're not hearing much about an independent counsel to dig into all of this crap.

[anon]

I sincerely did not know that was the FBI's actual job.

[Heroic Mulatto]

That's because it isn't.

The FBI was created to be Teddy Roosevelt's own little secret police:

Background

The 1901 assassination of President McKinley created an urgent perception that America was under threat from anarchists. The Department of Justice and the Department of Labor had been keeping records on anarchists for years, but President Theodore Roosevelt wanted more power to monitor them.

The Justice Department had been tasked with regulating interstate commerce since 1887, though it lacked the staff to do so. It had made little effort to relieve its staff shortage until the Oregon land fraud scandal erupted around the start of the 20th century. President Roosevelt instructed Attorney General Charles Bonaparte to create an autonomous investigative service that would report only to the Attorney General.

Bonaparte reached out to other agencies, including the Secret Service, for personnel, investigators in particular. On May 27, 1908, Congress forbade this use of Treasury employees by the Justice Department, citing fears that the new agency would serve as a secret police. Again at Roosevelt's urging, Bonaparte moved to organize a formal bureau of investigation with its own staff of special agents.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Creation

The Bureau of Investigation (BOI) was created on July 26, 1908, after Congress had adjourned for the summer. Attorney General Bonaparte, using Department of Justice expense funds, hired thirty-four people, including some veterans of the Secret Service, to work for a new investigative agency. Its first chief (the title is now known as director) was Stanley Finch. Bonaparte notified Congress of these actions in December, 1908.

The bureau's first official task was visiting and making surveys of the houses of prostitution in preparation for enforcing the "White Slave Traffic Act," or Mann Act, passed on June 25, 1910. In 1932, it was renamed the United States Bureau of Investigation. The following year it was linked to the Bureau of Prohibition and rechristened the Division of Investigation (DOI) before finally becoming an independent service within the Department of Justice in 1935. In the same year, its name was officially changed from the Division of Investigation to the present-day Federal Bureau of Investigation, or FBI.

[Gladstone]

You know which other Bonaparte was involved with a secret police?

[Heroic Mulatto]

Charles Bonaparte's great-uncle?

[Gladstone]

Yeah I know, way too easy.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Still, connections like that make me believe in Lizard People.

[Gladstone]

I always knew Kris Kristofferson was bad news besides being in a Streisand movie.

[Heroic Mulatto]

That having been said, Teddy Roosevelt doesn't get nearly as much hate as he deserves, even here. Even before FDR, TR is the ur-Progressive. He was a social engineering, blood-thirsty, war-mongering, racist imperialist, who, through a combination of his arrogance and hubris, believed he had a God-given mission to reshape the entire world in his image. He also had a contemporary cult of personality that he knowingly cultivated.

I'm glad the fucker had to endure the death of his mother and his first wife on the same day.

[Libertymike]

Don't you wish the fucker had to endure more?

[Heroic Mulatto]

He did have good taste in handguns, so that's one saving grace.

[Agammamon]

The Bureau of Sabotage?

[BuSab Agent]

Doing that.

[R C Dean]

My IRS reform plan:

(1) Repeal the Internal Revenue Code and all subsidiary regulations.

(2) Close the IRS.

(3) Pass a new federal tax law that is not income-based, obviating the need for a large, intrusive bureaucracy.

[Pro Libertate]

Make it totally donation-based, and I'm in.

[Stormy Dragon]

Divide the federal budget by population, and then bill each state according to it's share of the total. Then leave it up to each state to decide how it wants to pay the bill.

[Pro Libertate]

I've thought before that one way to re-empower the states as checks on federal power would to put tax collection entirely in their hands.

[Stormy Dragon]

It would also discourage padding census data. You get more house representation, but you also get stuck with more of the costs of funding the federal government.

[Suthenboy]

I disagree. Dissolving about 75% of the agency and doing away with the personal income tax entirely would be in order.

[Suthenboy]

Never mind.
What RC said.

[croaker]

I'd say a closure of the entire agency is more than in order.

[Zeb]

I've just decided that I don't like the term "identity theft". My identity is inherent in my person, not my SSN. I am not who I am because I have a government assigned number. What these people are stealing is identifying financial information.

[Pro Libertate]

As they acquire more and more evidence about you, they'll collect some of your cells, fast-breed a clone, implant all of the information, and use your clone to commit crimes.

[anon]

So basically identity thieves make replicants?

[Pro Libertate]

Yes, and just enough like you to mess up your life.

[A Serious Man]

You sure about that? One my of favorite episodes of 'Alfred Hitchcock Presents' is an episode where a banker discovers that a double is slowly taking over his life and pushing him outwards.

[Pro Libertate]

And there was that Twilight Zone with the robot replacement (based on a Bradbury short, I think).

[Stormy Dragon]

Identity Theft is a phony crime that only exists because crony corporations were able to convince the government to make you financially responsible for their failure to properly identify who their customer was before doing business with them.

[Fist of Etiquette]

President Barack Obama: Commissioner Werfel! When you instituted the human reliability tests, you assured me there was no possibility of such a thing ever occurring!

Commissioner Daniel Werfel: Well, I, uh, don't think it's quite fair to condemn a whole program because of a single slip-up, sir.

[Episiarch]

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I don't think we can even comprehend the levels of fraud, theft, corruption, graft, and malfeasance that are part and parcel of our government. Even we, the people who think it is inherently terrible, cannot grasp how terrible it actually is.

[Pro Libertate]

You know what's funny? On a relative scale, the U.S. may still have less corruption than many nations. I mean, look at most African governments--there's more corruption than there is anything else.

That said, we're reaching horrific levels here, and I think on any absolute scale, it's always been bad.

[Episiarch]

The thing is I'd rather just have simple, bribe-able bureaucrats. it would be more straightforward.

[Pro Libertate]

There seems to be some point where bribery becomes so prominent that the system becomes too expensive to operate in. That may be what's happening here, writ large (instead of one official, we bribe the official and a whole voting bloc).

[Ted S.]

How about not paying bureaucrats as well, and letting them sell services on a commission basis? You can get your car's registration renewed from whichever one you negotiate the best price from.

(not particularly serious)

[R C Dean]

I hear ya, Epi. I'd much rather get pulled over for speeding by your typical Second or Third World cop, where the whole exercise is over in 5 minutes and my wallet is only $20 lighter, than get tagged by one of our Heroes in Blue, where the process will take longer and cost me a hell of a lot more.

[Night Elf Mohawk]

One of the phrases I learned before the trip to Ecuador was "?C?mo puedo solucionar esto?"

[Longtorso, Johnny]

bribe-able bureaucrats

We can't afford to bribe them - they make more than we do.

[A Serious Man]

You know what's funny? On a relative scale, the U.S. may still have less corruption than many nations. I mean, look at most African governments--there's more corruption than there is anything else.

African countries tend to be so poor that the government is incapable of policing corruption and creating an incentive not to break any rules. Plus, most governments over there are fragile and are always threatened by military coups, so why stay loyal to one?

In the US, there is only one Federal government and it isn't going anywhere. Federal employees are well-compensated and have benefits far superior to most jobs in the private sector. At the end of the day, it just doesn't make sense to openly demand bribes or engage in behavior that's outside the bounds of what your union and bureaucracy is able to protect you from.

But as that bureaucracy expands and becomes more powerful, the incentive not to be corrupt breaks down since they don't face consequences for it.

[Pro Libertate]

I like how we bribe elected officials by giving them jobs that pay huge amounts after they get out of office.

[Libertymike]

PL-

What I find so frustrating is the almost knee-jerk response of the American exceptionalism crowd to view such matters upon a relative basis rather than upon an absolute basis.

IMO, the above is intellectually inferior and a declaration of surrender.

[Dave Krueger]

I am very disappointed that the government seems to have no respect for the sanctity of our private data.

HAhahahahahahaha! I kill me!

[MappRapp]

Wow man I never thought about it liek that. Wow.

http://www.Global-Anon.com

[Almanian!]

Well, it's not like this kind of thing is widespread. So...not an issue.

LOOK! RETHUGLICAN INTRANSIGENCE! ERMAGERD, SERKWERSTER!

[Rich]

This crap will diminish when appropriate punishments are implemented.

Say, restitution to the victims and a week in the stocks.

[croaker]

No, a week on a short stake. Cuts down on repeat offenders.

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that Joy Fox (stripper name?) lacked sufficient training in NOT stealing people's personal information.

DAMN YOU, SEQUESTRATION!

[R C Dean]

Clearly, week-long off-site seminars for all IRS employees are the only solution.

[croaker]

Probably a real stripper. The Cincinnati Service Center is actually on the Kentucky side of the river, and is practically surrounded by strip joints.

[Enough About Palin]

Just another phony scandal.

/Obama

[croaker]

Eat my shorts, Lawn Jockey In Chief.

[MappRapp]

This guy looks like its gonna be really cool.

http://www.Global-Anon.com