Pa. Senator sponsoring federal bill to combat identity theft
Thieves stole the identities of Pennsylvanians more often in 2014 than in every other state in the nation except Florida, a troubling distinction that U.S. Sen. Bob Casey said demands a solution.
“We have more and more folks doing transactions online, and that makes it easier for the bad guys,” said Casey, D-Scranton, who is co-sponsoring a federal bill to combat identity theft.
Last year, Pennsylvanians fell victim to 172,426 confirmed tax-related identity theft cases.
Casey said he did not know why the number was so high, accounting for about one in 10 of every tax-related identity theft case that year. Pennsylvania ranks sixth nationally in population.
“We have a disproportionately high number,” Casey said. Yet even if the figure was more in line with the state's population rank, “It would still be a big number and too high,” he said.
Identity theft compromises credit history, financial security, personal safety and reputation, Casey said.
“All of them are very difficult to rebuild,” he said.
Casey is one of nine senators co-sponsoring the Identity Theft and Tax Fraud Prevention Act of 2015, which U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson. D-Fla., introduced.
“You can't just curse the darkness,” Casey said. “You've got to have solutions.”
Provisions in the pending legislation include:
• Expediting refunds for tax-related identity theft victims
• Providing victims a single point of contact in the IRS regarding their cases
• Phasing out the use of Social Security numbers in the health care system
• Increasing penalties for participating in tax fraud
Having a single contact person in the IRS to help each victim would be an improvement over the current system, said Steve Weisman of Boston, a lawyer and professor who runs the Scamicide blog and author of “Identity Theft Alert.”
But increasing penalties for hackers and criminals unlikely to be caught probably isn't going to help, he said.
Lawmakers need to focus more attention on revamping the W-2 tax-filing system so that the IRS can check whether returns are valid before the money gets issued if it really wants to help people, Weisman said.
“Until Congress does something about the W-2s, they are just posturing,” he said.
In May, the IRS revealed that international hackers stole the tax returns of 104,000 Americans and used the information to file $50 million in fraudulent tax returns.
Weisman said the problem is much bigger.
“We're talking about $5.8 (billion), $5.9 billion a year that is lost,” he said.
UPMC last month alerted 2,200 patients treated at the hospital system's emergency rooms that their medical records might have been disclosed to an outside billing company. Last year, the region's largest health care system reported that as many as 27,000 of its workers might have had their personal information compromised.
Downtown-based Highmark Inc., the state's largest health insurer, in March told nearly 52,000 customers in Western and Central Pennsylvania that their personal information — including Social Security numbers, addresses, email accounts and phone numbers — might have been stolen as part of a huge data breach of fellow Blue Cross/Blue Shield provider Anthem Inc.
“Obviously, a lot of this is a consequence of technology,” Casey said, noting that there are many benefits of being able to transmit data faster. “But it also exposes data to hackers and criminals. This is a big business now for the bad guys.”
Jason Cato is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. He can be reached at 412-320-7936 or jcato@tribweb.com.
