The state of Alabama has identified an unlikely ally in its fight against tax fraud: selfies.
The Alabama Department of Revenue has partnered with identity protection technology agency MorphoTrustUSA to create a system designed to prevent criminals from filing fraudulent tax returns.
The partnership has designed an app that will authenticate your identity and send you a notification when a tax return has been filed. Users must authenticate that they filed the return themselves before it can be processed.
Until now, people don’t usually know that their identity has been stolen until they try to file a tax return. By the time they figure things out, a fraudulent return has already been filed and a stranger has received your refund.
“Right now, there’s no federal or state stoppage that will prevent a thief who has your personal information from filing a tax return without your knowledge,” Department of Revenue Commissioner Julie Magee said. “The commissioner of the IRS, John Koskinen, and myself, we remain very frustrated that after somebody’s identity has been used to file their tax return, there is very little remediation we can do for them.”
To fix this problem, users can download the app, input information from their driver’s license, and take a selfie that will be cross-referenced with a photo on file with the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency. Every time you log into the app or file a tax return, your selfie acts as your password – but much more secure.
“It gives the taxpayer the ability, at least on the state side, to say ‘I want to be alerted if someone files a tax return with my information,'” Magee said. “We can empower the citizen to have the right to file their tax return unimpeded.”
Tax fraud and identity theft have become increasingly concerning issues, especially with the growth of online tax filing systems. In 2014, 2.7 million individuals had their identities stolen and in 2011 $5.2 billion was handed to identity thieves. Alabama ranked 14th in the nation for identity theft complaints in 2013.
Usually all a thief needs to steal someone’s tax refund is his or her social security number. The app created by the AL Department of Revenue and MorphoTrustUSA is taking the first steps to remedying this problem. MorphoTrustUSA is developing similar systems in Georgia and North Carolina as well.
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