The IRS Isn't Sure Who They Hired Or Why Your Sensitive Tax Documents Are Filed In Dumpsters
Here are three things you didn't want to know: 1) The IRS doesn't always conduct background checks on the employees contracted to handle your sensitive tax documents; 2) Those contracted employees regularly toss your sensitive tax documents into dumpsters without first shedding them; 3) The IRS doesn't really know who's in charge of conducting background checks on contracted employees, or who's responsible for keeping your sensitive tax documents shredded and out of dumpsters. At least that's what the Treasury Inspector General's office uncovered when it audited everyone's favorite auditors.
"We found evidence of only 2 instances where IRS personnel conducted visitations to shred/burn facilities in the past 2 fiscal years," the report notes. "Not all Territory Managers were even able to identify the contractor who provided their shred/burn services or where they were located. None of the four contractor sites we visited had ever received a request from the IRS to inspect their facility or onsite records."
In response, the IRS says it will keep close watch on both its dumpsters and contracted employees. Honest!
Increased Management Oversight of the Sensitive but Unclassified Waste Disposal Process Is Needed to Prevent Inadvertent Disclosure of Personally Identifiable Information (Audit # 200830008) (pdf) [Treasury Inspector General For Tax Administration]
Report: IRS Created Dumpster-Diver Swimming Holes [The Washington Post]
(Photo: sonyaseattle)
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Comments:
Picture. Is. Brilliant.
Off of what Henwy said, your personal info is everywhere. Every place I've worked, people come in to job off applications (Hey, I'm young, no big long-term job for me yet) and they always give them to me and I put them on my boss' desk or in the register. Job applications have SS numbers on them. 'Nough said.
That's my favorite instance, because it always makes me think about how totally not secure my information is. Ever.
I'm sure they're taking the matter *very seriously*
Identity Fraud Prevention Eagle says:
Fer ur protection, I iz in ur dumpster, shredding ur documents wit my talonz.
@henwy: You mean like the people who get jobs advertised on tv which require no school experience so you can enter the exciting and important world of medical records entry?
And yet the government can track down someone who accessed celebrity passport information and prosecute them.
And there are some idiots think that the government should get their grubby little hands on more of our private information like our health records. This is more proof that we need less government and fewer of the mouth breathers who could not get real jobs that work for it.
One man's (IRS Agent) garbage (your sensitive personal info) is another man's (identity thief) treasure (your sensitive personal info)
@SpruceStreetPhil: I think the Brown one's expression is priceless. "Holy Shit! What the f*ck is that?!"
Why wasn't this story reported by Tax Cat?!
Would this problem be mitigated by e-filing, or are things like W-2's affected by this too?
No wonder they claim they can't find my return when they don't like the numbers on it.
Brilliant photo too. Fitting for this economy.
There is nothing surprising about this. The IRS has also failed to collect over $300 billion in delinquent taxes! Our government agencies are run by political friends of our special interest loving politicians. Not the head of the IRS or any other government agency is held responsible for these kinds of incompetent management mistakes, so don’t get your hopes up that there might even be a correction for this ridiculous problem. As long as we have legalized bribery (lobbyist money) also don’t expect any changes in government leadership in the future from Obama, the Democrats or the Republicans – they all are on the take!
I wonder how much of our tax dollars have already been returned by lobbyists to the political parties since the bailout/giveaway has been in effect? After all, it’s perfectly legal to kick back to those who have been generous in making sure the financial incompetents got their multi-million dollar salaries, even thought they thoroughly screwed up the world economy!
@Ananelle: For what it's worth, I've never heard of anyone not getting a job because they didn't put their SSN on a job application. It's generally acceptable to leave that blank and not furnish your SSN until you have an interview.
The IRS needs another whack upside the head. The last time anyone payed any attention to what they were doing was when Clinton was in office. I have had my returns kicked back twice in the past few years. Both times they found a minor error that would not have changed much of anything but then went on to make a bunch of major errors of their own. The last one the person who modified my return didn't even do the rejection properly according to the IRS agent I spoke with on the phone.
My guess is that they IRS is contracting out this work also just like the SSA was contracting out disability benefit reviews to unskilled low paid flunkies and now that system is a complete mess.
Letting agencies contract out things like building maintenance or fixing their phone systems is one thing, govt. agencies should not be allowed to contract out their core activities.
"At least that's what the Treasury Inspector General's office uncovered when it audited everyone's favorite auditors"
I forsee an IRS audit in the Treasury Department IG's future.
I could be wrong on this, but I think that the shred/burn contractors are not actually hired by the Treasury Dept. I was always under the understanding that the General Services Administration (GSA) hired 2-3 approved contractors that the entire government should use.
That said, I always throught that the burn bags were highly unsecure. Government burn bags are orange and brown with "Burn Bag" on them (way to advertise that there is no secure information in them). They are usually left in the hallway until the contractor arrives (with all of the unshredded documents in them). They are placed on a truck (still not shredded), and driven to the burn facility where they presumably sit, unsecured until they are burned (or are tossed in dumpsters). A better system, shred locally in the individual offices, or if the volume is too great, hire a shred contractor, and have the government employee(s) escort the contractor while he picks up the bags to be shredded, walk him to his truck that has a shredder inside, and watch the contractor until the last bag is dumped into the bulk shredder.
@henwy: God knows I'm not a fan of the IRS - even though I realize taxes are a necessary evil if I want certain niceties that are often taken for granted...BUT, background checks are REALLY expensive.
Unless you just go with the "local background check" that basically just checks police records in the area for which a person is applying for a job. If a company wants anything relatively in-depth, it can get very costly. Multiply that by how many people, contracted or permanent-hire, work for the IRS and you've got mile-high expenses to add to the overhead. What will this mean for agencies in the public sector? Two things can happen: A. They lay people off and the IRS just has fewer-yet-more-potentially-trustworthy people doing the same big job, or B. Taxes probably go up to cover the new expense. Pick your poison.
But yeah, IRS, let's just throw out SSN like they schwag bags at the Oscars. Buncha dorks.
@I Love New Jersey: True, but at least in the public sector, the public can hold agencies accountable because, technically, we hold the purse strings. Does this happen as it should? Generally no...but at least there's the promise of it. Otherwise, an AIG-size personal-data-dump can happen and we're left with no recourse other than to accept an apology.
Okay everybody. I get active and upset about a lot of issues, but THIS one...this one affects us ALL. We have NO CHOICE but to pay taxes, and this ain't frickin acceptable. (Love the picture by the way).
I am an Obama supporter but I have written a stern demanding letter to him via Congress.org, and would like to ask you all to email the link to everyone you know. The more we all get together and email him and Congress on this one, the sooner we'll see it taken care of.
@Con Sumer Zealot: If you want your letter to be read and considered credible, you really should address him by his title, not his first name. Unless, you're basketball buds or something. But if you were, you'd be telling him in person not a public email site.
@SpruceStreetPhil: How cool to be reading feeds and see my photo on Consumerist! Here's the original: [www.flickr.com]
Eagles in Dutch Harbor, AK, are as common pigeons in the city. They're everywhere and kind of scarily annoying. There are a few more pix of them in the set.
@I Love New Jersey: I'm amazed you could get so far in live abstaining from "mouth-breather-run" public services. I think you're an example for us all.
Do tell what you use in place of roads, libraries, schools.. and of course, your municipal water supply.
Because carelessness only happens in the public sector.
@RogerTheAlien: Although the government employees who did the misdeed aren't likely to get fired, now are they?
@veg-o-matic: I went to private schools and our three library systems in the city are private non-profits.
@Ananelle:
When I have an applicant up front and I have to go to lunch or something, I always give them a folder to put their app in. That way they can put it on my desk when they're done and anyone else coming in after that can't just glance at their info.
@bohemian:
I made an error that netted me a bunch more money. They sent me a letter: "You messed up. We fixed it. Do nothing."
So I went shopping. :)
Well whatever, we all express our own stuff our own ways. Obama is a plain talker, so am I, and I feel having personally supported him in the race I can call him by his first name, thanks.
Now go get a point, or send a letter of your own, and I'll armchair quarterback you.
Don't waste my times with stupid rhymes. Thanks lol.
@Sonya Reasor: I was going to guess Homer. I wasn't there during eagle season, but I'm told it's the same.
@I Love New Jersey: Great. I hope you got there by walking on your own private pathway or driving your non-government safety approved vehicle on a private for-profit toll roads system, and enjoyed a cool glass of water from your own private well when the hard day was over.
Otherwise, you'll have entrusted your life to a mouth breather who couldn't possibly be employed anywhere else!!!!1!!11
@Ananelle:
I always leave the SSN place blank. My SS card stays in a safe place in my house, until I have to go sign an actual job offer.
@RogerTheAlien: Have we received an apology from the government? Will we?
Congress holds the purse strings, and wow, they've sure shown restraint in the past three months, haven't they?
I believe it's called "shredding", not "shedding".
;)
This kind of thing isn't something that is "Supposed" to happen. We have very stringent rules regarding documents, which are "Supposed" to be followed by all employees. Unfortunately, with the crazy system the IRS has had to adopt recently in order to cut costs, they've eliminated a good amount of what were once permanent jobs, and replaced them with seasonal and temp positions. What this means is that you have employees who are hired in massive hiring gluts for a very limited amount of time. This creates a constant influx and outflux (is that a word?) of people doing jobs that were at one time the same person for 20+ years.
This leads to a lot of employees not giving a shit about anything, the same way it does at a typical company who resorts to the same hiring practices. They know they're going to be gone, sometimes in 1-3 months, and they don't get benefits.
The RULES are that any document with a DLN (document locator number) or a Social Security number, are supposed to go into special bins labeled for such to get shredded and burned. Then they're supposed to be sent to centralized service centers, and then from there they're supposed to actually get shredded and burned. This process can be screwed up at many points along the line.
As for background checks, I honestly have no idea. I was told that the FBI handles the background checks, and I know that they sent letters to all of my references. I know that we are told that the hiring process takes so long because of these background checks. (sometimes months) and I know that people have been turned away because of something uncovered in the background check.
"Private contractors revamping IRS computers committed security violations that significantly increased the possibility that private taxpayer information might be disclosed, Treasury Department inspectors say."
Oops. That "Privatization" that is so promoted by some to be "much more efficient and money-saving" than government workers - is not working out so well I guess.
I dunno why this is surprising. Most government employees have craploads of personal information pass through their hands and never face a good background check. Maybe people think it's different because it's the IRS, but think about those who work for medicare or medicaid or social security or god knows how many other agencies which deal with stuff like this.