Stop IRS cheats

A simple way to curtail ID theft when it is used to cheat the IRS would be to emulate every stock brokerage in America: Just have Internal Revenue send a “confirmation” upon their receipt of a tax return.

This is done every day by every stock brokerage in the country when activity occurs in an account. Then Internal Revenue holds your tax check for ten days before mailing it.

This gives a victim of ID theft a chance to contact the IRS thereby stopping the cheating and giving everyone a heads up that their identity has been stolen.

This story was originally published March 30, 2015 at 6:50 PM with the headline "Stop IRS cheats."