NOTE: I wrote this post in 2012, so be aware of its age.
—–
I’ve been blogging about Wendy Boka, a client of mine, who has been going through a ridiculous amount of trouble with the IRS over the theft of her deceased husband’s identity. So far, I’ve told 4 parts, and will have at least 8 or 9 total parts to the story.
Wendy was just 29 years old when Brian died — way too young to become a widow. Her and Brian were native Iowans but she moved to Texas after Brian died, as she was trying to put her life back together.
Wendy maintains a great blog, http://www.wendyrebuilding.blogspot.com/, where she blogs about the struggles of being a young widow. On Tuesday, she posted her thoughts about the identity theft. Here’s a small sample:
The left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing at the IRS, to put it simply. The division in charge of processing returns, the division in charge of identity theft, and the division in charge of hunting down tax evaders all do their own thing without any communication or cross-reference. I thought a phone call and letter from Jason would straighten all this out. Instead, I continued to get those scary letters every few months.
Finally, Jason was able to get the letters to stop. He simply had the nasty-gram people put a hold on those letters until the identity theft people can get this sorted out. Eighteen months later, that’s all the progress that has been made. I’m not getting letters threatening legal action anymore, but I still don’t have my tax refund that the government owes me, and more important — I don’t have resolution. I don’t know what is happening with the scum that took my dead husband’s social security number and filed a fraudulent return. I don’t know who that is, or whether that person has been caught. I know he or she has created a painful nightmare for me and a lot of work for my tax advisor.
Today I have another call scheduled with the IRS so I can update them on what’s going on (that’s what they told me the last time I talked to them– that I had to call them to give THEM updates on what THEY are doing).
The last time I talked to the IRS, they told me Wendy’s case was “where it is supposed to be in the process.” However, if there’s no forward movement soon, we will need to escalate to Taxpayer Advocate Services and see if they can help.