MGC Sentinel

The United States Treasury Department's Acting Deputy Inspector General for Audit just released a lengthy report about the extent of income tax fraud in the U.S. The audit was conducted as a direct result of the Senate and House hearings we have been watching over this past year. Their findings are stunning. You can read the report here. Surely the subcommittee chairs will move their legislation (H.R. 6205 and S. 3432) out of committee with a favorable report with the support of the audit results. Between 2010 and 2012, the fraud more than doubled from 440,581 instances to 1,125,634 instances "meeting the characteristics of confirmed identity theft cases." In 2011, these returns amount to $5,221,018,184 in potentially fraudulant payments. Much of this fraud is apparently generated by criminal groups. It is significantly limited geographically. The report provides the following table. The addresses in the table are unique residential addresses. Five homes...

Deciphering the Acronyms The Massachusetts Genealogical Council (MGC) is an umbrella organization with both individual and organizational members interested in genealogical and historical research in Massachusetts, and who care about access to public records. MGC monitors legislation, both in Massachusetts and nationally, to ensure that our public records remain accessible. It's not as fun as doing genealogical research, but it is necessary work.  Image courtesy of theUnited States Social Security Administration SSDI stands for Social Security Death Index, the commercial term for the Social Security Administration (SSA) Death Master File (DMF). The DMF is a list of Social Security numbers of people now deceased and whose numbers may not be used by anyone ever again. The Death Master File was created by the SSA to address pension and other forms of benefit fraud, and when used properly, it does just that. It is considered a public document under the Freedom of Information Act, and is sold...