IRS Commissioner: Illegal Aliens can use Stolen SSNs to File Tax Returns

IRS Commissioner John Koskinen told a Senate panel on Tuesday that the IRS wants to continue to allow illegal aliens to use stolen social security numbers to file tax returns without allowing the numbers to be used for “bad” reasons. Koskinen said it’s in everyone’s interest to have illegal aliens paying taxes.

Sen. Dan Coats (R-Ind.) asked the Koskinen to explain the policy after revealing that his staff looked into IRS procedures and found that, “the IRS continues to process tax returns with false W-2 information and issue refunds as if they were routine tax returns, and say that’s not really our job.”

“What happens in these situations is someone is using a Social Security number to get a job, but they’re filing their tax return with their , ” Koskinen said. “They are undocumented aliens … . They’re paying taxes. It’s in everybody’s interest to have them pay the taxes they owe.”

Sen. Coats also revealed that the IRS ignores notifications from the Social Security Administration when a name and SSN does not match and that IRS agents are prohibited from informing the victims of employment-related identity theft even though the agency identified 200,000 new cases last year.

Koskinen explained that as long as they were using the stolen SSNs to only illegally obtain a job that they would allow them to continue to use the number in order to file taxes, since the IRS uses the taxpayer identification number (ITIN) to process the tax return.

“The question is whether the Social Security number they’re using to get the job has been stolen. It’s not the normal identity theft situation,” Koskinen said.

The topic of the hearing was to address the cybersecurity failings of the IRS to protect taxpayer data. In February 2016 about 464,000 of these stolen SSNs were targeted by hackers in a cyber breach. The agency said it wants to differentiate the “bad” misuse of personal data from other uses.

Read more on this story at The Washington Examiner.