Identity Thieves Got Private Data for 104,000 U.S. Taxpayers

Identity thieves stole information on 104,000 U.S. taxpayers from the IRS website and used the data to file fake tax returns that yielded as much as $50 million in refunds, agency Commissioner John Koskinen said.

The thieves had enough personal information on the taxpayers to get past security filters on the “Get Transcript” function on the Internal Revenue Service’s website, Koskinen said Tuesday on a conference call with reporters.