Can you explain? (without personal details, of course) How did this happen? How did you find out about it? What did you do about it? Has the case been solved yet? What were the ramifications to you and your family? I'm not being nosy, I just want to know how to prevent this from happening to my family.
This year, Mr. Shulman, head of the IRS, was on CSPAN one night at a Congressional hearing on this, apologizing to a bunch of victims, and promising to fix things by sending everyone a special pin number for future use. Sure enough, I got a pin number for use this past April. When I tried to file electronically, the pin # did not work. I then spent a day on the phone with the IRS, to no avail. And their online websites did not work, either. I paper-filed again, and called my Congressman. He has been working on it and has been told I may get my refund by the end of July. It is large. I hope so.
The best thing to do is file early so that someone else cannot beat you to the punch. That is not possible for me . . . for various reasons, I can never file until at least March. It might help you to have an accountant do your taxes and file for you. I don't know. But, of course, the one other thing you can do, which I am now forced to do, is to withhold less from my paycheck; I will put the extra take-home pay in a separate fund for paying taxes when I have to. I certainly cannot trust the IRS.