During a recent computer break-in the IRS data-base was robbed at the hands of computer hackers. The attack obtained hundreds of taxpayers information including, income levels, children's names, bank accounts and details of specific tax credits. The theft was encountered through the "Get Transcript" tool that's on the IRS website. The information said IRS Commissioner John Koskinen was attained after 200.000 attempts. It indicates that "hackers are using more sophisticated equipment" in efforts to gather information about taxpayers. With such infomation fraudulent tax refunds can be submitted and paid. At least 5.8 billion fraud tax filings were paid by the IRS in 2014. Since this recent break-in the IRS has said it's on constant viligance with a tighter security measure. However, because many of the stolen taxpayers information is at the mercy of identify theft, the IRS will be notifying taxpayers by mail if it appeared that hacker has downloaded, or attempts to downloading their tax transcripts. Some of the identify theft victims will be offered a secure PIN from the IRS in order to use for their information regarding returns. Efforts may have Congress to offer more help to victims if necessary to build a better more secured website.
