IDENTITY THEFT SWAMPS TAMPA BAY FLORIDA WITH TAX REFUND FRAUD

Tampa Bay, Pinellas and Miami, Florida have become the epicenter of identity theft tax fraud with thieves stealing social security numbers, then using the information to file fake taxes and to take the tax refund in the form of an IRS credit card. Some argue that the IRS is at fault for making it all too easy to accomplish the crime by sending out immediate tax refunds as credit cards before doing any kind of factual or mathematical examination of the tax forms.

 Van Gogh, Postman Joseph Roulin, 1888

By the time the IRS gets around to verifying the validity of information the money is long gone and at least at this point sadly, I must report that not one dime of it has made it into the willing hands of your favorite Clearwater Criminal Defense Attorney.
The only benefit appears to be that some violent criminals in Florida have traded their guns for laptops giving up doing violent crime for the lucrative, easier and safer pursuit of fake tax refunds fueled by furious acts of identity theft.
One wonders if it'd be easier just to pay criminals not to do violent crime? Happily, this experiment is moving forward with CBS more or less launching a national tutorial on how to conduct tax fraud identity theft crime and Forbes donning identity theft as a fun in the sun Florida vacation crime.
Yet the mournful NYT noted that postal workers have been beaten and one was even killed by Florida tax fraudsters who wanted the postal workers master pass key to gain access to the credit cards being sent to millions of folks across the country from the IRS, apparently to everyone in the United States who is not a Largo Criminal Defense Lawyer.