Cleveland business owners are often familiar with marketing software that enables you to contact customers and potential customers, targeting them by zip codes, purchase types, area codes and other information entered into the program. You type your message into the appropriate field, add artwork, tap a few keys and voila, your letter-flier-reminder is printed and off to their homes. Of course you don't include their credit card number in your message. That would be crazy because a million different bad things can happen to that number in the mail.
Apparently the Internal Revenue Service is struggling to keep itself from sending you mail -- tax forms, notices, letters, etc. -- that don't include your Social Security number. Obviously, if that set of digits gets into the wrong hands, it can do you at least as much damage as a credit card number in those same hands.
Let's look at the situation for a moment. Imagine that you've opened your mail and found notification of an impending audit. Along with that disagreeable news, you're unpleasantly surprised to see your Social Security number included in the letter, putting you at risk of identity theft if someone else had gotten to the correspondence first.
A new report says IRS progress on eliminating unnecessary inclusion of your SSN is limited. The agency has removed the digits from 58 percent of the types of letters it sends out and from 48 percent of the types of notices it mails to taxpayers. The agency has missed the deadline for removing unneeded SSNs: the task was supposed to have been completed by March of 2009. Clearly, more than five years later, much work remains to be done.
For those who get correspondence about an audit, please remember that you have rights in that process. Even if an IRS agent has found that you owe substantial taxes, you have options and rights, including the right to appeal with the help of a tax attorney.
The tax lawyers at the Cleveland office of Robert J. Fedor, Esq., L.L.C. represent you in appeals to the IRS and before the courts. Please see our Experienced Representation in IRS Audits and Appeals page for more information about us and how we can help you.
