The IRS has had significant problems in protecting taxpayers from identity theft (including cases where the IRS's own employees were complicit). A recent posting by this commentator, discussing Congress's efforts to embargo the information in the Death Master File as a questionable remedy to stolen identity tax fraud, observes that most identity theft tax fraud involves stealing the identities of living persons, and that "cutting off access to the DMF may well protect deceased children, but will not stop identity theft tax fraud." Now, backed by the White House, the Department of Education has announced an "Education Datapalooza" program to improve college access and affordability (maybe if the DoE would cut back on the number of reporting requirements it imposes on the individual educational institutions, the cost of education might actually be brought under control). Part and parcel of this "Datapalooza" is the IRS's new "Get Transcript" program, whereby individual taxpayers...(Read Full Post)