I tried to warn all my friends. I hope they listened.
Here’s Krebs covering the massive theft of data from the IRS through the mechanism I discussed previously. I feel vindicated in warning people since the IRS is now reporting 200,000 suspicious transcripts were requested and 100,000 were authenticated! That’s a 50% success rate by guessing using automated techniques. And that’s what the IRS is admitting to at this time.
I’ve always thought it was doubly rotten to borrow money from poor people (a tax refund is a loan being repaid) and then make those people, who are generally not accountants, fuss with the details of the transaction.
But hey, that’s what happens when you pay providers of an uncessary service enough to lobby congress to make the service compulsory.