Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. H.R. 744, the Stopping Tax Offenders and Prosecuting Identity Theft Act, has laudable goals of addressing the growing problem of tax return identity theft. Unfortunately, in seeking to address one problem, the bill creates another one. Last Congress, the Crime Subcommittee held a hearing at which we learned how individuals are victimized by those who file false returns using the names and Social Security numbers of the victims. When someone has had a false return filed in their name, they often have to engage in an arduous process of setting the record straight with the IRS and obtaining a refund they may be due. In other instances, perpetrators sometimes benefit by falsely claiming that a deceased child of another is a dependent on their own forms. Parents of the deceased children are then subjected to the additional grief and burden of clearing things up with the IRS. As a longstanding advocate of personal privacy and personal privacy rights, I am particularly concerned about these schemes which violate the privacy of individuals in addition to imposing financial burdens. Clearly, we need to do more to combat this type of crime. Accordingly, I support the approach in section 2 of the bill, which encourages the Department of Justice, using task forces, to bring its resources to bear on the problem of tax return identity theft.…”