IRS says thieves stole tax info from additional 220000

“The IRS will begin mailing letters in the next few days to about 220,000 taxpayers where there were instances of possible or potential access to “Get Transcript” taxpayer account information”, the agency announced Monday.

The agency did a further review and issued a statement Monday adding 224,000 more victims to the list of those whose information was potentially accessed.

WASHINGTON-The Internal Revenue Service said identity thieves’ penetration of one of its computer databases was much more extensive than previously reported, with more than 300,000 taxpayer accounts potentially affected and more than 600,000 breaches attempted. Another 170,000 attempts to steal taxpayer information were unsuccessful. In order to access the information, the thieves cleared a security screen that required knowledge about the taxpayer, including Social Security number, date of birth, tax filing status and street address, the IRS said.

IRS officials also believe that the thieves’ efforts this year were part of a broader scheme to steal refunds during next year’s filing season.

In May, the agency reported that hackers used private information to file fraudulent tax returns, which were then used to collect almost $50 million.

The hackers were able to use information about taxpayers that they had acquired separately to “prove” to the system that they were an authorized user.