[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 12]
[House]
[Page 17704]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                    INCOME TAX RETURN IDENTITY THEFT

  (Ms. CASTOR of Florida asked and was given permission to address the 
House for 1 minute.)
  Ms. CASTOR of Florida. Mr. Speaker, there is a growing problem across 
America involving identity theft and tax fraud. This new kind of 
criminal will steal Social Security numbers and then file for a 
fraudulent tax return.
  The City of Tampa Police Department recently uncovered a 
multimillion-dollar fraud scheme, lost moneys to the taxpayers. So 
Congressman Rich Nugent and I, a Republican colleague from Florida, 
have been working together to tackle this problem.
  I intend to file a bill this week that would, one, give local law 
enforcement the tools it needs to be an effective participant with the 
IRS in these tax fraud investigations. Right now Federal law doesn't 
allow local law enforcement to be an active participant. And, two, for 
folks that have their identities stolen, often months and months and 
months go by before the IRS is able to fix their return and their 
credit, and we've got to do that. It's leaving them hanging for months.
  So I encourage my colleagues to join in our efforts to tackle tax 
fraud and this criminal enterprise.

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