Should prosecutors be able to seize tax records to find people who commit identity theft etc..?
Is it legal since it they were seized from the tax preparer?
Is this a way to end identity theft and illegals fraudulently using social security cards and ITIN numbers?
Paying taxes comes back to bite illegal immigrants
By Ivan Moreno
Associated Press Writer
Updated: 05/30/2009 11:18:25 AM MDT
GREELEY, Colo. – Immigrant advocates say they’ve seen nothing like it before or since: A prosecutor looking for illegal immigrants seized thousands of confidential tax records from an income tax preparer popular with Hispanics in this northern Colorado city.
The October seizures led to identity theft and criminal impersonation charges against more than 70 people, and prosecutors allege that as many as 1,300 suspected illegal immigrants were working using false or stolen Social Security numbers.
But the American Civil Liberties Union said the documents of as many as 4,900 people were seized, many of them legal residents, and that the probe was the “equivalent of a house-by-house search of innocent homeowners in order to find a suspect believed to be somewhere in the neighborhood.”
Two judges have agreed, ruling that Weld County District Attorney Ken Buck had no probable cause to seize the records. Buck is appealing, however, and a ruling in his favor could open up a new avenue for prosecuting illegal immigrants.
The charges have been ironic for immigrants like Horacio Arturo Cervantes. The 42-year-old father of four from the Mexican state of Chihuahua said he had been honest about paying taxes, even though he was in the country illegally, because he was hoping for a path to U.S. citizenship.
Cervantes pleaded guilty to identity theft before the judges’ rulings, and now faces deportation. He said he pleaded because he wanted to get out of jail and try his chances in immigration court.
“I feel like I’m up in the air, not knowing what’s going on, just with a desire to stay here,” he said in an interview in Spanish. His next court date is June 23.
Buck’s investigation, dubbed Operation Numbers Game, marked the first time a prosecutor used tax records to charge illegal immigrants with identity theft, according to the ACLU and the Los Angeles-based National Immigration Law Center. Officials with both groups said they knew of no prosecutor who has tried it since.
Buck’s probe triggered a conundrum: The people charged allegedly are in the country illegally and were fraudulently using Social Security numbers. But the Internal Revenue Service requires them to pay taxes, and those records are confidential.
Buck declined to be interviewed for this article because of pending appeals. But in a February interview, he argued that “if you’re in this country illegally, and you’re working in this country illegally, there may be a requirement that you pay taxes but it’s kind of ridiculous.”
Buck has argued that the records aren’t confidential because they were seized not from the IRS but from the tax preparer.
The investigation started after a Texas man alerted Weld County authorities that his identity was being used. The suspect in that case told authorities he had filed his taxes with Amalia’s Translation and Tax Services, a business widely used by immigrants in Greeley, where one-third of the population is Hispanic.
To pay their taxes, Amalia Cerrillo’s customers used Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers, which the IRS issues to people without Social Security numbers. Foreign nationals with U.S. investment income also use ITINs. Those charged in Operation Numbers Game allegedly used others’ Social Security numbers to work and their own ITINs to pay taxes.
ITIN filers had an income tax liability of $50 billion from 1996 to 2003, according to the latest IRS figures available. Former IRS Commissioner Mark Everson told Congress in 2006 that ITINs were “bringing taxpayers into the system.”
IRS spokeswoman Nancy Mathis said ITINs solely track tax returns and don’t convey or record immigration or work status. Nor do they give immigrants the right to work in the U.S.
Buck had said more identity theft cases were possible, and that prosecutors in other states were interested in his investigation, but Larimer County District Judge James Hiatt halted it in April. Ruling in favor of the ACLU, he said investigators violated privacy rights by seizing the tax documents and that their search was over-broad. Hiatt likened the search to taking medical records from a doctor’s office because one patient was a suspected drug user.
Weld County District Attorney’s Office: http://www.co.weld.co.us/departments/da/index.html
excuse me, but identity theft does ruin peoples lives every day. would you not be able to buy a house etc… because someone used your identity, would you like to pay someone elses debt because they used your info. it is not a victimless crime at all!
cheatly- You call everyone else a racist, but your profile shows the real racist, another who blocks people but will answer their questions, low, low low, ha ha ha!
no, i.d. theft is overblown anyway. It’s not like i.d. theft is murder or ruining anyones life. you make it seem like someone using SS number that’s not their is a huge gigantic deal, it’s not murder or rape duh.
That was a special case, IT was the tax preparer who was doing something illegal and the tax information in her office was evidence of her crime. The prosecutors have a right to exam those records and then charge co-conspirators. What I want to see is the IRS be cahrged for supporting a systematic form o racism. They need to have similar checks to see if those filing ITIN has the correct information on it, like dependents. Why should Americans be evaluated with greater scrutiny then those who use ITIN.
TO the guy above me. That raid is one of the few sources of information than provides real insight on the problems of illegal immigration. Due to our laws we have very few means to see how problematic illegal immigrants are. The raid determined that half who file ITIN severely cheats on their taxes and there is a huge net lost in tax revenue do to illegal immigrants. Many of them who file taxes get more money back then they put in. And When I said Money, I mean cash not benefits.
make it seem like someone using SS number that’s not their is a huge gigantic deal, clueless somebody using your ss number and the IRS is contacting you asking why you are not reporting all this income you made in 49 different states, try this this story with the IRS and feel free to explain to the IRS, seems like someone using my SS number that’s is not a huge gigantic deal and what the harm with someone else using your ssn to open credit accounts, buy houses,cars,all this stuff is not as easily dismissed as you think and it takes years at some point, a lot of people must be issued a new number because the stolen SSN is so abused there is no hope of ever resolving the matter.Its your attitude that ID Theft is a laughable matter this is what is making America as corrupted as Mexico.
Yes, if this tax service has been proven to have a large number of ID theft cases connected to it. That company could in fact be the source for those stolen social security numbers in the first place.
It needs to be investigated thoroughly.
Someone else using your social security number for work purposes causes the IRS to think you are earning more money then you really do. This raises your taxes … sometimes to the point that you can’t afford it.
A few years back when I was in school there was a case study done on a man that had 15 jobs … 14 other people were using his social security number and according to the IRS he owed taxes on over a million dollars. It took 3 years to straighten out and he almost lost his house because of it … the IRS had been garnishing his wages and froze his bank accounts.
And people think this isn’t hurting anyone?
YES!!!!
Greely, Colorado use to be a small college town that turned out excellent teachers for the nation. The illegal aliens moved in, and the problems just started growing and getting much worse. The crime rate is high.. narcotics are all over the place.. Colorado has been swarmed by illegal aliens and I hope very much they can be run out, and the city returned to the decent place it use to be.
Go to this site and read the forums in it.
http://www.city-data.com/city/Greeley-Colorado.html
Illegal immigrants are not the only ones committing identity theft. The ones grabbing your credit card numbers over the internet and cloning your cards are good ole US citizens. I would say no to your question which as usual is directed at a certain culture which you seem to despise.
yes.