S. HRG. 114–283

SENATE BUDGET COMMITTEE FIELD 

HEARINGS FISCAL YEAR 2016 

HEARINGS 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

June 8, 2015-PERSPECTIVE ON BUDGET PROCESS REFORM: S. 1495, 

FAIRNESS FOR CRIME VICTIMS ACT OF 2015 

August 26, 2015-FIELD HEARING ON TAX-RELATED IDENTITY 

( 
SENATE BUDGET COMMITTEE FIELD HEARINGS FISCAL YEAR 2016 
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97–729 2016

S. HRG. 114–283

SENATE BUDGET COMMITTEE FIELD 

HEARINGS FISCAL YEAR 2016 

HEARINGS 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

June 8, 2015-PERSPECTIVE ON BUDGET PROCESS REFORM: S. 1495, 

FAIRNESS FOR CRIME VICTIMS ACT OF 2015 

August 26, 2015-FIELD HEARING ON TAX-RELATED IDENTITY 

( 
COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET 

MICHAEL B. ENZI, WYOMING, Chairman 

CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa 

JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama 

MIKE CRAPO, Idaho 

LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina 

ROB PORTMAN, Ohio 

PATRICK TOOMEY, Pennsylvania 

RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin 

KELLY AYOTTE, New Hampshire 

ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi 

BOB CORKER, Tennessee 

DAVID A. PERDUE, Georgia 

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont 

PATTY MURRAY, Washington 

RON WYDEN, Oregon 

DEBBIE STABENOW, Michigan 

SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island 

MARK R. WARNER, Virginia 

JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon 

TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin 

TIM KAINE, Virginia 

ANGUS S. KING, JR., Maine 

ERIC UELAND, Republican Staff Director 

WARREN GUNNELS, Minority Staff Director 

(II) 
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C O N T E N T S 

HEARINGS 

Page 

June 8, 2015-PERSPECTIVE ON BUDGET PROCESS REFORM: S. 1495, 

FAIRNESS FOR CRIME VICTIMS ACT OF 2015 ........................................... 1 

August 26, 2015-FIELD HEARING ON TAX-RELATED IDENTITY ................. 55 

STATEMENTS BY COMMITTEE MEMBERS 

Chairman Enzi .......................................................................... 1, 71, 157, 351, 423, 493 

Ranking Member Sanders ........................................................ 2, 74, 160, 353, 425, 499 

WITNESSES 

Peg, J. Dierkers, Ph.D, Executive Director, PA Coalition Against Domestic 

Violence ................................................................................................................. 33, 37

Honorable J. Russell George, Inspector General for Tax Administration, Department of the Treausy ...................................................................................... 88, 90 

Honorable John A. Koskinen, Commissioner, Internal Revenue Service............ 80, 82 

Chistropher Lee, Senior Attorney Advisory, National Taxpayer Advocate Service....................................................................................................................... 105, 107 

Diane Moyer, Legal Director, PA Coalition Against Rape.................................... 25, 28 

Abbie Newman, RN, Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer, Mission 

Kids Child Advocacy Center of Montgomery County, PA ................................. 16, 19 

John C. Walker, Enrolled Agent, J. Walker and Company, LLC ........................ 65, 71 

Lori Weeks, Straford, Tax-Related Identity Theft Victim .................................... 61, 63 

John Whelan, District Attorney, Delaware County, PA ........................................... 4, 7 

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 

Questions and Answers ......................................................................................... 61, 220 

(1) 

PERSPECTIVES ON BUDGET PROCESS REFORM: S. 1495, FAIRNESS FOR CRIME VICTIMS ACT OF 2015 

MONDAY, JUNE 8, 2015 

UNITED STATES SENATE, 

COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET, 

Washington, D.C. 

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:00 a.m., in the 

Martin G. McGuinn 67 Ceremonial Courtroom, Second Floor, 

Villanova University School of Law, 299 North Spring Mill Road, 

Villanova, Pennsylvania, Honorable Pat Toomey, presiding. 

Present: Senator Toomey. 

Staff Present: Adam Kamp, Chief Clerk; and Gregory Dean, Republican Chief Counsel. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR TOOMEY 

Senator TOOMEY. Good morning. I will call to order this hearing 

of the Budget Committee of the United States Senate. 

I want to, first of all, welcome everyone for being here, for joining 

us this morning. I want to thank our witnesses. I will provide an 

introduction and more formal acknowledgement and thanks in just 

a minute, but I really appreciate your being here and making this 

possible. And, a big thanks to our host, the Villanova Law School. 

I really, really appreciate their willingness to provide an outstanding facility so that we can do this. 

Just for your information, I am a member of the Senate Budget 

Committee and the committee has rules that permit individual 

members to have field hearings across their respective states, but 

it is unusual to do it. It has to be approved by the leadership of 

the committee. And, this is the first field hearing that I have done 

since I have joined the Senate and joined the Budget Committee. 

But, I have chosen this topic because I feel very, very strongly 

about it. I think the problem that we are going to discuss this 

morning and the remedy that we have developed is really very, 

very important, and I hope that through the discussion this morning we will be able to shed some light on this and call some attention to the situation that we face. So, thank you for helping us to 

accomplish that. 

The fact is, every single year, victims of child abuse, sexual assault, domestic violence, and other crimes do not receive the full 

services that they need. The fact is, abused children sometimes 

wait weeks before they can receive the full medical and emotional 

services that they need. There are rape victims who are not able 
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to obtain the medication that can prevent them from contracting 

HIV/AIDS. There are victims fleeing domestic abuse who are unable to find beds for themselves and their children. 

And, this does not have to happen this way. Every year, the federal government takes hundreds of millions of dollars, sometimes 

billions of dollars, that under federal law are required to go to the 

victims of crime and the government instead diverts those monies 

to other discretionary spending programs. And, none of this money 

comes from taxpayers in the first place. 

So, you are probably asking yourselves, how can this happen? 

Well, it happens through the Crime Victims Fund, and I am going 

to describe this. Back in 1984, Congress created the Crime Victims 

Fund based on a simple principle, and the principle is that money 

that the federal government collects from those convicted of crimes 

should be used to help those who are victims of crime. The Crime 

Victims Fund receives no taxpayer dollars at all. It is funded entirely by criminal fines and penalties collected in federal courts. 

So, even though money deposited in the Crime Victims Fund is 

supposed to be used only to assist crime victims, for over a decade, 

Congress has withheld billions of dollars from victims and instead 

used that money to offset other discretionary spending programs. 

For instance, from fiscal years 2010 through 2014, the Crime Victims Fund collected $12 billion, but dispersed to victims only $3.6 

billion. Congress used the $8.4 billion difference as an offset for 

other discretionary spending. And, through a budget gimmick, a 

gimmick in the rules by which Congress accounts for its spending, 

Congress represents that this money, money that has already been 

spent, is still available to the Crime Victims Fund and, therefore, 

still theoretically available for victims. 

Well, this gimmick is troubling from a transparency point of 

view. It is just dishonest budgeting and it allows Congress to 

under-report the amount of money that is being spent. But even 

more troubling is the problem from the victims’ services standpoint. 

As I said, victims of child abuse, sexual assault, domestic violence, 

and other crimes are routinely unable to access the help that they 

need because the funds have not been dispersed as they should. 

So, we have made some progress in recent years. I was pleased 

to see, in response to pressure that many of us were putting on the 

appropriations process, the fiscal year 2015 budget, the Crime Victims Fund allocation was $2.3 billion, versus $745 million the previous year. So, we about tripled the allocation from the Crime Victims Fund. 

And, in addition, the budget resolution that we just passed a couple of months ago, at my insistence, it dramatically curtails this 

gimmick for the next fiscal year. So, in 2016, according to our 

budget resolution, the Crime Victims Fund will disperse about $2.5 

billion. Again, we are holding—actually increasing modestly from 

last year’s level, which is itself three times higher than previous 

years. 

So, what is the impact in Pennsylvania? In 2014, Pennsylvania 

crime victims services organizations received $17 million. Next 

year, that will be $70 million. So, it is a big increase. It is a good 

start. It is movement in the right direction. 
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But, it is only a start because these provisions that caused the 

increase in fiscal year 2015 and 2016, they are temporary. They expire when the funding expires. They expire at the end of those fiscal years. So, what we need is a permanent legislative fix that simply requires that we end this injustice and we start allocating the 

funds in the Crime Victims Fund each and every year as the law 

has always contemplated, but not delivered. 

So, to do this, I have introduced a bill. It is called the Fairness 

to Crime Victims Act of 2015. It is S. 1495. And, it would provide 

a permanent fix. The bill would ensure that, henceforth, money deposited into the fund goes to crime victims, not to other discretionary spending or budget gimmicks. It would require specifically 

that each year, the Crime Victims Fund disperse the average of the 

past three years’ collections. So, it smooths out the amounts deposited into the funds each year. That would be over $2.6 billion for 

2016. I have six cosponsors on my legislation, Senators Ayotte, 

Corker, Crapo, Gardner, Hatch, and Johnson. 

And today, I am grateful that we are joined by four advocates for 

victims of crime, advocates who can inform our committee of the 

needs of crime victims, the way that they serve crime victims, and 

including those victims listed as priority groups under the Crime 

Victims Fund, which are specifically the victims of sexual assault, 

victims of child abuse, and victims of domestic violence. 

So, my hope is, again, that we will shine a bright light on the 

true cost of this budgetary gimmickry that Congress has undertaken and the true cost is the lost service to crime victims who 

need this service. If we are successful in shining that light, it is my 

hope that we will build support in the Senate Budget Committee. 

I expect that we will have an opportunity to pass this legislation 

in the committee as soon as the next several weeks, and then it 

will be a fight to get this on the Senate floor so that we can pass 

it into law and implement this. 

So, again, big thanks to our witnesses. I am going to introduce 

our—I will introduce each of the witnesses and then I will ask for 

your testimony, and then we will have time for some questions at 

the end. 

Let me start with Jack Whelan. Jack Whelan is the District Attorney of Delaware County. Jack has been dedicated to criminal 

justice for decades. Back in the 1980s, when he was an Assistant 

District Attorney in Delaware County and a trial team leader, he 

led the respected law firm of Whelan, Doyle, and Pressman. He 

served two terms as Chairman of the Delaware County Council, 

where he made public safety a top priority. Since 2011, when he 

became the District Attorney for Delaware County, Jack has led on 

several issues, including founding the Delaware County Heroin 

Task Force to raise awareness about prescription drugs and heroin 

abuse. 

He has received many honors from victims’ rights groups and victim advocacy groups. I am very pleased that in April, the Delaware 

County Children’s Advocacy Center had its official opening, and I 

know that the Children’s Advocacy Center appreciates having a talented and dedicated ally in Jack Whelan. 

Next, we will hear from Abbie Newman. Abbie is the Executive 

Director and CEO of Mission Kids Child Advocacy Center of Mont-
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gomery County, and Abbie has been a tireless advocate for children. She began her career as a registered nurse practicing pediatrics. But after graduating from law school, she in time became the 

founding Executive Director of the Mission Kids of Montgomery 

County and served as the group’s Executive Director and CEO to 

this day. Ms. Newman also served as President of the Pennsylvania 

Chapter of Child Advocacy Centers from 2012 to 2014, when she 

was elected as First Chair of the External Affairs Committee of the 

State Chapter, in which position she continues today. 

I want to thank Abbie very much and the other advocates at 

Child Advocacy Centers throughout Pennsylvania. I have had an 

opportunity to tour probably six or eight Child Advocacy Centers 

in Pennsylvania and I have been very, very impressed at how devoted these folks are to serving kids who are the victims of some 

of the most horrendous circumstances. They really do a wonderful 

job, and Abbie, I want to thank you for joining us today. 

Next, we will hear from Diane Moyer. Diane is the Legal Director at the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape. Diane is a fighter 

and she has been fighting for victims of sexual assault for decades. 

She served for 18 years as the Legal Director of the Pennsylvania 

Coalition Against Rape, which is the oldest anti-sexual violence coalition in the nation. The Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape 

oversees 50 Rape Crisis Centers in Pennsylvania. I had the opportunity to visit one of these, the Pittsburgh Action Against Rape 

Center, and saw firsthand the valuable work that they do. 

Diane is a board member of the National Crime Victims Law Institute and the National Alliance to End Sexual Violence. She has 

worked on many pieces of legislation to achieve justice for victims 

of sexual assault, including legislation on HIV testing of sex offenders, extending civil statute of limitations for child sexual abuse, denial of bail for violent predators, and many others. Diane has also 

received awards from numerous organizations reflecting the great 

work that she has done over many years, and she has been invaluable in helping to craft the Fairness for Crime Victims Act. I appreciate all of your help, Diane. 

And then, finally, Peg Dierkers. Peg Dierkers is the Executive 

Director of the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence. 

Peg is dedicated to providing the best, most innovative and comprehensive service possible for victims of abuse. She has been the 

Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic 

Violence, which serves nearly 100,000 victims in Pennsylvania each 

year, and serves on the Victims Services Advisory Committee for 

the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency. 

Peg and her policy advisor, Abigail Hurst, have been very, very 

helpful in drafting the Fairness for Crime Victims Act and I look 

forward to continuing to work with you, Peg, to prevent and assist 

victims of domestic violence. 

So, with that, we will begin our testimony, and first, I would like 

to hear from District Attorney Jack Whelan. 

STATEMENT OF JACK WHELAN, DISTRICT ATTORNEY, 

DELAWARE COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA 

Mr. WHELAN. Thank you, Senator. I want to start by saying it 

is an honor for me to appear before you today, and I want to take 
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the opportunity to thank you for your leadership, not only today for 

the Fairness for Crime Victims Act, but your past leadership, for 

example, as you mentioned, in regard to our heroin epidemic here 

in Delaware County, for your bipartisan efforts on the National All 

Schedules Prescription Electronic Reporting Reauthorization Act, 

as well as what we will be talking about a little bit today, the sexual abuse and how you were sponsoring the Protecting Students 

from Sexual and Violent Predators Act, all which will be very important in Delaware County. 

Unfortunately, we are here in Delaware County and it is unfortunate to the extent that we probably are the third highest county 

in the State of Pennsylvania with our crime hitting 10,000 cases 

a year and 4,000 separate juvenile cases. So, we are, we believe, 

statistically speaking, we are third in the state. We have the largest District Attorney’s Office after Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and 

then we are third in regard to personnel in our efforts to combat 

crime. 

We are very fortunate, though, that we have advocacy groups 

that we partner with. Those advocacy groups, some of them are 

here today. Joyce Dale is here with us from Women Against Rape, 

and the Family Support Line that is running our Child Advocacy 

Center, Pat Krasinski, and our Domestic Abuse Project. These are 

victim advocacy agencies, nonprofit groups that work on a daily 

basis. They work each and every day to support crime victims. We 

in the District Attorney’s Office are fortunate to be able to partner 

with them so that when we are prosecuting the case, we know that 

there is a victim advocate for each and every victim of a crime. 

To put it in, I guess, a form of a perspective, if you drove here 

today and you drove and you pulled into Villanova University in 

your vehicle, and when you leave these hearings today, if you went 

out and your car was stolen, that would affect you. It is going to 

seriously inconvenience you. You are a victim of a theft, an auto 

theft, and it is going to bother you. 

But one thing I am told by people that have their car stolen, although it has not been a devastating crime or a devastating impact, each one person that has had their car stolen will never forget the fact that they had their car stolen, and will never forget 

the fact that when they left Villanova at the Senate committee 

hearing, that they went out and their car was taken from them and 

the inconvenience that they suffered. 

Now, when you look at that with a simple theft crime and how 

you feel victimized, and now you compare that to an individual 

that has been sexually abused, or an individual that has been 

raped, an individual that has been beaten violently, these individual victims will never, ever forget. Not only will they never forget what happened, but they will never be the same when that 

crime occurs to them. For the rest of their life, they will never, ever 

be the same. 

So, it is critical to have our victim advocacy groups. These are 

groups of individuals that operate 24-hour hotlines that the victim 

can call, even sometimes before the police are involved. It is important, because not only do they encounter that victim, follow that 

victim through the criminal justice system, they provide services to 

that victim that no other entity can provide, for example, coun-
6 

seling, whether that counseling be support groups or psychological 

counseling. All of this is money that is very well spent. 

But, one of the complaints or concerns of all of these victims’ 

rights advocacy groups is the fact that we do not have enough resources. We can always use more resources to help the victims here 

in Pennsylvania. They do an incredible job, and they make ends 

meet with what they have, but they need more resources. 

Recently, as you indicated, the Child Advocacy Center here in 

Delaware County was opened up and they are now still needing additional resources to help these children. Unfortunately, what we 

have seen when the Child Advocacy Center opened up is an onslaught of individuals that now are being interviewed. We have a 

couple of trained forensic interviewers. One is here with us today. 

However, we need more interviewers. We need more people ready 

and willing to help to deal with these impacts of child abuse, because the children deserve more. They deserve to be taken care of, 

into the criminal justice system. 

Many times when we thrust these young victims into a very difficult scenario, a situation where they are being placed into a courtroom and we are directly examining them, and then they are crossexamined, then it becomes difficult. The Child Advocacy Center 

lessens the impact of these individuals. So, it is very important. 

We are also happy here in Delaware County that the Internet 

Crimes Against Children Unit is housed right in Delaware County, 

in our Criminal Investigation Division, and that is funded by the 

Department of Justice. And, for many, many years, under the leadership of Congressman Meehan, we have been able to support that 

through federal funding and continue to go across the State of 

Pennsylvania, partner with affiliates to make sure that children 

are not being victimized additionally with Internet applications. 

So, when we look at different scenarios that occur, unfortunately, 

whether it is rape or it is child abuse or it is domestic violence, we 

are in the throes of all of this and it is important that we continue 

to be advocates of these victims, and it is important to make sure 

that the resources are available for all of our victims’ groups. 

And, I thank you for having this opportunity to address you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Whelan follows:] 
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Senator TOOMEY. Thank you, D.A. Whelan. Thank you very 

much for your testimony. Your written testimony, I appreciate, as 

well, as I read that last night. That will be submitted for the record 

and I appreciate it. 

Next, Ms. Newman, thank you for joining us. Your written testimony also will be submitted to the record, but I invite you now to 

give us your oral testimony. 

STATEMENT OF ABBIE NEWMAN, R.N., EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR 

AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, MISSION KIDS CHILD ADVOCACY CENTER OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA 

Ms. NEWMAN. Good morning, Senator Toomey, and thank you. I 

do not think that my voice carries quite as far as Mr. Whelan’s, so 

I am going to have to move closer to the mic over here. Thank you 

for the opportunity to testify here today on how we can continue 

working to help heal and obtain justice for Pennsylvania children 

who have been victims of sexual predators. You are a great leader 

on the issue of preventing child abuse and helping survivors of 

child abuse have access to all of the services they need to heal. 

My Child Advocacy Center, Mission Kids, is an accredited member of the National Children’s Alliance. We proudly support your 

Protecting Students from Sexual and Violent Predators Act, which 

seeks to help keep child predators out of our nation’s schools. The 

bill also bans ‘‘passing the trash,’’ that terrible practice where a 

school can knowingly help a predator get a job someplace else so 

they become another district or state’s problem. 

We also appreciate your cosponsorship of the Justice for Victims 

of Trafficking Act, which President Obama just signed into law. 

This law gives law enforcement additional tools to find traffickers 

and increases fines and penalties and reserves the money to fund 

services for trafficking victims, and we very much appreciate that 

the first $2 million collected will go to Child Advocacy Centers to 

help fight this, as well. 

And, we are very excited to work with you on the Fairness for 

Crime Victims Fund Act. I would like to speak for a moment on 

how the Crime Victims Fund could help Child Advocacy Centers, 

which in shorthand are known as CACs, across Pennsylvania and 

the country by explaining the purpose of CACs and the difference 

that CACs make. 

CACs are designed to help victims of child abuse through every 

step of the justice system and to obtain medical and emotional 

care. The need for CACs is best explained by one adult survivor of 

child sexual abuse. This person saw an ad that we created and the 

ad simply said, ‘‘Imagine living the worst day of your life over and 

over and over.’’ When this person saw the ad, he came to me and 

he said, ‘‘I saw that and what clicked in my mind is that it was 

actually two worst days, the day of the abuse followed by the day 

of the investigation.’’ 

Child sexual abuse is a crime of secrecy. Child abusers groom 

their victims and take months or years to make the child that increasing touch is acceptable behavior. By the time the abuse takes 

place, the child may feel that they are to blame, and since 50 percent of the time the abuser is a family member, and over 90 per-
17 

cent of the time it is someone in a close relationship to the family, 

who is going to believe if they tell anyway? 

The mission of the CAC is to achieve healing and justice for victims of child abuse. At a CAC, police, prosecutors, social workers, 

medical and mental health professionals, and child advocates work 

as a team to help that child at every step, from investigation 

through prosecution to receipt of specialized medical help and mental health counseling. The goal is to limit additional trauma to the 

child and ensure that the child receives specialized needed services 

as quickly as possible. 

In communities without a CAC, if a child is brave enough to report abuse, they are often required to retell and, thus, relive the 

abuse through multiple repetitive interviews with social workers, 

prosecutors, police, victims’ services, medical, mental health counselors, and they do it in places like an emergency room or a police 

station. Think about it. When you are a kid, you go to the police 

station because you are a criminal or you are bad. 

The child does not understand that somebody there is trying to 

help them, and often, because the adults are not properly trained, 

they use techniques which are very much more like interrogations 

than something designed to actually get the child’s story from the 

child. And, too often, the child is not receiving the needed medical 

attention and mental health counseling, and the result is that the 

very professionals that are trying to help this child end up retraumatizing them over and over again. 

There is another danger to this typical approach of multiple 

interviews, and I am sure that Mr. Whelan and every other prosecutor who has prosecuted a child abuse case has found it, which 

is that when you have slightly differing testimonies and slightly 

different statements, which happens whenever different people 

hear it—we all hear things differently—then you have different 

statements that a defense attorney can pick apart later on in a 

courtroom. 

If the case reaches trial, the child often does not have the 

strength to tell their story again, this time in a courtroom not dissimilar to where we are sitting, with a judge in a big black robe, 

12 strangers, and the abuser staring at them, and then undergoing 

cross-examination by the defense attorney. The prosecution will 

often fall apart and the child and family are left in a much worse 

situation than before the abuse was even reported. 

CACs make the child the focal point. All of the professionals 

come to the child, as opposed to making the child travel to the separate agencies. The child’s experience starts when they are greeted 

by a professional, child-friendly staff at a center, which often resembles a pediatrician’s office or after-school environment to make 

them feel comfortable. The child is then interviewed by a highly 

trained forensic interviewer. Forensic interviewers are responsible 

for obtaining a statement in a manner that is developmentally appropriate, using open-ended and non-leading questions that will 

not taint the interview further. 

Members of the multi-disciplinary team, made up of police, social 

workers, and prosecutors, are able to observe the interview live, 

often on closed circuit TV in the next room, so that they can see 

the nuances of a live interview. They can see the child’s reaction. 
18 

They can see facial expressions. And then they get a chance to sit 

and talk with each other, because one of the best things about a 

CAC model are watching these professionals share information in 

that observation room, because prosecutors and police and social 

workers all come to this process from different backgrounds, and 

all of a sudden, things and statements that are black and white to 

them as individuals become gray as they talk to each other. All of 

the result is a better investigation for all of them and a better outcome for the child. 

Victim advocacy services are begun as soon as the child arrives 

and a relationship of trust begins to build. While the child speaks 

to the forensic interviewer, the family members meet with a 

trained advocate. Many families are so overwhelmed by what they 

are going through that they do not even understand the need at 

the time for mental health services for themselves and their child, 

and the advocate will help them to understand that need and set 

them up with the very specialized services that they need. 

Children often react in different ways to child abuse. The reactions can be severe, such as depression or suicide, or they could be 

very vague—bed wetting, becoming introverted, or promiscuity, a 

decline in grades, or an over-achiever. Or, they may not even—the 

symptoms may not manifest themselves until sometime later in life 

when some life event triggers what happened to them and their experience. 

Bluntly put, CACs need more funds. Every child victim desperately needs help, but due to funding shortfalls, that is not always possible. The prevalence of child abuse is staggering. At Mission Kids alone, which serves only Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, we have done over 2,300 forensic interviews in five years. 

Between ten to 20 percent of all children will be victims of child 

sexual abuse before the age of 18. In Pennsylvania, 23 counties 

have a CAC, but 44 do not, often due to inability to fund a CAC. 

Nationwide, 1,000 counties have no access to CACs. Some counties 

are attempting to begin a center like Mission Kids or use services 

of CACs in nearby counties, and some still have no CAC services 

at all. 

Many of the nation’s CACs have one or two victim advocates for 

900 children. It is not uncommon to hear in Pennsylvania, as you 

noted, that there may be a wait time of three to six weeks for mental health services or two to four weeks for non-emergency forensic 

interviews. 

Your Crime Victims Fund bill will make a huge difference to the 

abused children of Pennsylvania and across the country. Thank you 

for your help and caring about the most vulnerable victims in our 

society. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Newman follows:] 
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Senator TOOMEY. Ms. Newman, thank you very much for your 

testimony. 

Next, we will hear from Ms. Moyer. Again, your written testimony will be included in the record and I welcome your oral testimony. 

STATEMENT OF DIANE MOYER, LEGAL DIRECTOR, 

PENNSYLVANIA COALITION AGAINST RAPE 

Ms. MOYER. Thank you, Senator, and thank you for being a 

champion on not just VOCA, but so many other issues that other 

elected officials find it either too difficult to deal with or they are 

interested in other things. But, you have been a champion for those 

who cannot speak for themselves and I appreciate that and will 

never forget your devotion to this issue. 

I am Diane Moyer and I want to thank Chairman Enzi, Ranking 

Member Sanders, and you, Senator Toomey, for the opportunity to 

testify here today. The Senator talked about what sounds like a lot 

of work, and was, but after 18 years, if I did not have a lot of marvelous things to say about having helped victims, then I would not 

be doing my job. 

I want to thank you, Senator Toomey, for your unwavering commitment to victims of sexual assault, and I do want to read this 

into the record. 

The Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape is proud to support the 

Protecting Students from Sexual and Violent Predators Act, the bipartisan bill introduced by you and Senator Joe Manchin of West 

Virginia. The bill works to stop sexual predators from infiltrating 

our children’s classrooms by requiring schools that receive federal 

funds to conduct background checks on employees. When you say 

that sentence out loud, it just seems so absurd that we do not do 

that already, when we trust our children with these teachers every 

single day. The bill also forbids a school from allowing a child molester to resign quietly and then find a new teaching job elsewhere, 

and that has happened nationwide. 

We thank you for cosponsoring the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act. It is another issue that people are reluctant to talk 

about that happens all the time. And, I would like to acknowledge 

Villanova’s own Shea Rhodes, who is here, for her work on trafficking, which is groundbreaking and necessary. The President recently signed that into law. Human trafficking is a modern form 

of slavery. Vulnerable people, often women and children, but also 

men and boys, are forced into prostitution, often raped hundreds or 

thousands of times. We appreciate your leadership in ensuring that 

traffickers are punished and that additional funds are available for 

victims of trafficking. 

We are also happy to have the opportunity these past months to 

work with you in drafting the Fairness for Crime Victims Act, 

which will ensure a steady increased funding stream—sensible— 

from the Crime Victims Fund. While some of our elected officials 

voice support for victims of sexual assault, you have acted. While 

others join the occasional bill and then forget when they face any 

opposition, you have been unrelenting in fighting for victims of sexual assault, continuing to fight on both the Protecting Students Act 
26 

and restoring fairness to the Crime Victims Fund, despite unbelievable opposition and obstacles. 

I would like to talk about some of the unmet needs of PCAR and 

its member programs, and I would also like to acknowledge the 

presence of some of the directors of our premier programs, Barbara 

Clark and her policy person, Julie Dugery, who does policy work 

in addition to being one of the best advocates in the state. Mary 

Onama and Barbara Clark, these women have dedicated their lives 

to victims of sexual assault, and I wanted to give them recognition. 

Thank you for indulging me in that. 

PCAR and our network of programs have consistently been good 

fiscal stewards of funding. However, as the identification of new 

issues and institutions addressed grows with our knowledge of victimization, the demands on services, education, and community 

awareness are stretched to the limit. We realize that outreach and 

messaging to different populations must occur in order to achieve 

our goal to eliminate sexual violence. 

As I have noted earlier, Senator Toomey has been a champion for 

victims of trafficking, who have an incredible continuum of needs 

that far exceeds most victims, including housing, addiction, alternatives to incarceration, trauma informed care, and accompaniment to medical and legal proceedings. We have always provided 

services to men, but appropriate outreach must ensure that these 

victims—that they will be treated with the dignity and care that 

they deserve. 

We have worked extensively with military victims, and our CEO, 

Delilah Rumburg, was a civilian co-chair of the Defense Task Force 

on Sexual Assault in the Military Services, and it is incredible 

what the military has been able to do in addressing the issue of 

sexual assault and as a leader for the rest of the nation. Ms. 

Rumburg was also on the Task Force on Child Protection in Pennsylvania as well as a member of the White House Advisory Council 

on Violence Against Women. 

Our leader has provided cutting-edge knowledge of sexual assault to these issues and has brought to the Commonwealth an urgency to treat the spectrum of victimization to programs in Pennsylvania and across the nation. Our programs have indicated just 

a few issues, the need for SANE Nurse programming, prevention 

education needed to reach boys and men—we know that it is different than the outreach that we have been doing for decades to 

women and girls and it is so important that every victim have access to services—collaboration with CACs and multi-disciplinary 

teams, counseling services under PREA, cyber crimes, prevention 

education at universities, storage, analysis, and victim notification 

about the testing of rape kits, transportation costs in our rural programs—people do not realize just how rural Pennsylvania is, that 

it is just not Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, we have quite a few 

counties in between—and the hiring and retention of qualified advocates. 

We know that you do not get rich doing this work, and you have 

to do it with a certain amount of heart and passion, but we believe 

that some of this Crime Victims Fund money should go to establish 

and maintain qualified staff and prevent turnover, because we need 

consistency in the treatment of these victims. And, we hope we 
27 

can—I know you are not supposed to ask for money for salaries, 

but these people commit their lives to working with traumatized 

people every day, and I know they do at the CACs, as well. And, 

I know even though the District Attorneys may not admit it all the 

time, it is pretty intense for them, too. 

Finally, we have learned from providing services to victims that 

victims’ compensation must be allowed to cover HIV medication to 

prevent this deadly disease. This medication is costly and usually 

not something that victims have the ability to pay for up front. 

Also, victims are often charged later for ambulance services that 

they did not call for, and imagine the trauma when the bills arrive 

for that service weeks after the assault. I urge the coverage of 

these costly but critical services for victims who through no fault 

of their own face financial retraumatization. 

We applaud the leadership of our Senator, Pennsylvania’s Senator, in funding for crime victims and those brave advocates who 

provide services in our Commonwealth and across the country. I 

urge Congress to join Senator Toomey and his really marvelous 

staff in the swift and certain passage of this legislation. 

Thank you, sir. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Moyer follows:] 
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Senator TOOMEY. Thanks very much, Ms. Moyer, for your testimony. 

Dr. Dierkers, your written testimony, as well, will be included in 

the record, and I invite you to share your oral testimony with us. 

STATEMENT OF PEG J. DIERKERS, PH.D., EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, PENNSYLVANIA COALITION AGAINST DOMESTIC VIOLENCE 

Ms. DIERKERS. Good morning. I also would like to thank the committee leadership and you for conducting this hearing and for inviting me to represent the interests of our 60 Pennsylvania Domestic 

Violence Centers and the thousands of victims and children they 

serve every day. 

At this time, I would like to recognize the hard working and 

dedicated advocates who have joined us here today: Mary Kay 

Bernosky from Berks County Women in Crisis; Maria Macaluso, 

Women’s Center of Montgomery County; Linda Thomas and 

Lauren Bucksner from A Woman’s Place in Bucks County; Sally 

Casey, Schuylkill Women in Crisis; Beth Sturman, Laurel House, 

Montgomery County; Elise Scioscia, Director of Public Policy at 

Women Against Abuse in Philadelphia; and Kristen Wooley at 

Turning Point of Lehigh Valley. 

PCADV is an alliance of independent, private, nonprofit organizations that provide services and advocacy on behalf of victims of 

domestic violence and their minor children. The coalition was established in 1976 and is actually the oldest statewide domestic violence coalition in the nation. And since then, we have helped each 

state in the union establish their own state coalition, and now the 

six U.S. territories have State Domestic Violence Coalitions, as 

well. 

We have grown over our 40 years of service to a membership of 

60 centers that provide services to every single one of the 67 counties in Pennsylvania. Our member organizations are required to 

provide a range of holistic services, including emergency hotlines, 

shelters, counseling programs, safe home networks, legal and medical advocacy, and transitional housing, not only for the direct victim of abuse, but also their children. During the last fiscal year, 

as you said, our centers helped more than 85,000 Pennsylvanians, 

including over 7,000 children. 

Unfortunately, 141 people lost their lives due to domestic violence homicide in 2014, 60 percent by the use of a gun, and we 

must do more to keep guns out of the hands of abusers. 

The Victims of Crime Act funds provide vital resources for both 

the victim and for the people trying to assist them, as you said, 

with no additional burden to taxpayers. In Pennsylvania, they are 

used for a wide range of critical services for victims of domestic violence, including crisis counseling, emergency legal advocacy, shelter 

and transitional housing, emergency financial assistance, and 

emergency hotline response. 

PCADV strongly urges the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime 

and Delinquency, who disburses these funds to our various counties 

to continue funding for these basic services that I just described 

while also considering emergency issues and unmet needs. 
34 

I want to amplify the emerging issues that Diane Moyer has 

mentioned, the first being the issue of human trafficking, both nationally and at the state level. The General Assembly signed Act 

105 into law during this last legislative session, and there is a 

great need in Pennsylvania for us to create a model of service and 

to train law enforcement as well as victim service providers to be 

able to help these minor victims and adult victims of human trafficking, and they have very unique needs that will require many 

more resources. 

Again, as Diane mentioned, we are more and more aware that 

serving male victims of crime, especially in cases of domestic violence and sexual assault, call for additional resources, both for 

staffing as well as to outreach men and help them overcome the social stigma and the barriers that they face. 

Regarding unmet needs, the Coalition and its 60 centers have 

been forced to live with less as a result of nearly a decade of 

flatlined funding by the state, as well as the loss of some federal 

funds, as well. As a result, we often cannot meet the growing requests for services from our communities. Last year alone, our 60 

Domestic Violence Centers reported 6,152 unmet requests for shelter due to the increased demand from increased public awareness 

about the issue of domestic violence and the inadequate resources 

to serve these victims. 

Every year, our national network participates in a one- day census, the results of which have just been published for 2014, and 

they are staggering. In one day in Pennsylvania, our network of 60 

centers helped 2,498 victims of domestic violence, including 713 

children. Of these services provided in that one day, 80 percent of 

the victims received emergency shelter, 80 percent received legal 

advocacy. However, in that same day in Pennsylvania, there were 

252 unmet requests for services which could not be provided because programs, although they have the expertise, did not have the 

resources to meet the need. 

And, although our advocates do not always know what happens 

to victims who are turned away, and we do everything we can not 

to turn them away, our centers report that 60 percent of domestic 

violence victims for whom there are no services that day return to 

their abuser. Thirty-two percent become homeless, and eight percent are forced to live in their cars in order to escape the abuse. 

These numbers provide the realistic answer to the too common and 

unfortunate question of, ‘‘Why doesn’t she just leave?’’ 

Releasing additional VOCA funds can do so much to ensure that 

there will be adequately funded services available to help each time 

the victim has the courage to seek help. 

When there is an unmet need in the community, PCADV recommends that VOCA funds be used first to expand existing capacity before new organizations are developed. It is an efficient strategy that will reduce overhead in communities while investing in 

agencies with a proven track record of success, many of whom are 

here with us today. 

We also hope that VOCA funds will support services that are 

broad and holistic, that ensure confidentiality and a sole allegiance 

to the victim. 
35 

We would also hope that VOCA funds can continue to be used 

to provide services regardless of whether a victim chooses to involve the criminal justice system. For domestic violence victims, 

this is especially important, as most of the justice they receive actually comes through the civil system and not always through the 

criminal system. These preferences empower and protect victims 

while honoring them as experts as to the safest way to support 

them in a journey to become survivor. 

We do recognize, also, the national need for a designated Tribal 

funding stream, and although Pennsylvania is not home to Tribal 

nations, many indigenous people live in our Commonwealth. 

PCADV supports the funding for Tribes in light of our work to 

overcome oppression for all people. 

As I bring my testimony to a close, I would like to talk about one 

more service, one of the most requested services of domestic violence victims and one that we hope can be expanded with the expanded resources of the Victims Crime Act. Whatever data point 

we look at, legal services is one of the most requested supports by 

survivors of domestic violence. The tactics of abuse create safety, 

economic, and child safety issues that can only be corrected with 

knowledgeable legal assistance and the help of the courts. And, 

again, as I said, often, it is the civil court system. 

Yet, we only have the resources in Pennsylvania to operate legal 

services in 15 counties, leaving victims and their children in 52 

counties without help. Our 15 civil legal representation sites helped 

more than 4,000 victims last year at a low cost of $317 per case. 

Impact and value like this is rarely seen in the human services system. 

One of our Domestic Violence Centers that are here today, 

Women Against Abuse, was able to provide legal assistance to a 

survivor named Kendra in a custody case against her child’s father. 

Before Kendra came to Women Against Abuse, she already had a 

protection-only order against her abuser, Mike, for a long history 

of abuse. Mike started arguing during a visit with the child and 

Mike put Kendra in a chokehold and wrestled her to the ground 

with one arm while holding their three-month-old child. Kendra 

was eventually able to get up and run into the bedroom to call 911. 

The police arrived on the scene of assault and arrested Mike. 

Kendra was shortly thereafter connected with Women Against 

Abuse, where an attorney in the civil legal project was able to assist in modifying her protection order to include no contact, and importantly, to file an expedited custody order to also help the child 

escape abuse, and Kendra was granted immediate primary custody 

of her baby. Women Against Abuse continues to help Kendra, because custody cases are very long. This is not a legal need that can 

be performed typically with pro bono services. And, Kendra has remained safe—Kendra and her child have remained safe from her 

abuser. 

So, we, too, urge Congress to pass your Fairness for Victims Act, 

S. 1495, and to disburse the Crime Victims Fund with the average 

of the past three years’ deposit. With that ample balance that you 

described in the Crime Victims Fund, now is the time to create a 

stable and sustainable funding formula and to release that addi-
36 

tional money for the purpose Congress intended and for which it 

has been collected. 

Again, I want to thank you for the championing of many issues, 

including this one, and your support of victims. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Dierkers follows:] 
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Senator TOOMEY. Thank you very much, Dr. Dierkers. 

I would like for my first question to ask Ms. Newman and D.A. 

Whelan both to give their perspective. It seems to me, and having 

toured a number of the CACs, there are multiple objectives that 

you are trying to accomplish when a child is brought in for an 

interview. You want to determine what type of treatment this child 

might need, what kind of harm has been sustained. There is the 

interest in trying to protect the child from future abuse of whatever 

kind. And, of course, there is the interest in prosecuting the perpetrator. These are very, very different objectives and different goals, 

and as I understand it, you would try to achieve progress on all of 

these in one place through one or a brief number of interviews. 

So, my question to Mr. Whelan, who comes at this from a prosecutorial background, and Ms. Newman, who comes from a nursing 

background, very, very different backgrounds with a very different 

sort of focus, how does it work? How well does it work when you 

try to achieve these very different objectives in the same place at 

the same time? 

Mr. WHELAN. Well, certainly, from the prosecutor’s standpoint, 

we want to take dangerous criminals off the street. We want to 

take child abusers off of the street and prevent them from re-offending to prevent the crime from occurring again. But, we also 

have to realize the compassion associated with these type of crimes, 

and the compassion is dealing with the victims of these type of 

crimes, whether they are children or adults. 

That is why we have been advocates of these centers. These 

Child Advocacy Centers are important, because they are important 

because they protect the child. As Ms. Newman alluded to during 

her comments, she had indicated—and this is what we are experiencing—if the child is a victim, that child then reports it typically 

to the parent or trusted adult who call the police. The police come 

in and then the child tells their story, exactly what occurred, to the 

police. Then they may go to the hospital, tell their story again. And 

then we have detectives interviewing the child again, and it goes 

on and on with the child being interviewed multiple times. 

The problem is, as was pointed out by Ms. Newman, every time 

the child deviates, even slightly deviates, from what they explained 

to the previous provider, then the defense attorney in the criminal 

case will try to make the child sound like they are lying through 

cross-examination. 

Senator TOOMEY. And, just to be clear, the deviation might be 

just remembering things one time that were forgotten a different 

times and that sort of deviation. 

Mr. WHELAN. Correct, or remembering more than they did before. 

Senator TOOMEY. Right. 

Mr. WHELAN. Now, all of the sudden, they remembered more, 

and all of the sudden they are being faulted for remembering more, 

or maybe the first interviewer did not conduct a thorough interview 

and now the defense attorney is going to twist—and they are doing 

their job under the Constitution, but they are going to twist the 

words of the child and they are going to try to convince the jury 

who sits up in these courtrooms that the child is not being sincere, 

and in those particular cases, our burden of proof is beyond a rea-
46 

sonable doubt, and in those type of cases, many times the jurors 

have doubt and those individuals are acquitted. Then they go back 

to re-offending, typically, and we are back to square one. 

Where Child Advocacy Centers bring a multi-disciplined approach and bring all together the disciplines of that children, they 

bring in the psychology, the CYS worker, the police officer, the detective, the Assistant District Attorney. The child is interviewed. 

The interview is taped and then the taped interview is turned over 

to the defense attorney. And what we have found, statistically 

speaking, in those jurisdictions that have Child Advocacy Centers, 

our prosecutions are much more successful. 

Senator TOOMEY. So, I think that is a really, really important 

point. So, you are arguing that the existence of the Child Advocacy 

Center, the process that they follow, that actually leads to a higher 

likelihood of getting a successful prosecution of the perpetrator? 

Mr. WHELAN. Which is important, but equally important is that 

it protects the child— 

Senator TOOMEY. Right. 

Mr. WHELAN. —from being further victimized in the criminal justice system. 

Senator TOOMEY. Right. Well, and putting perpetrators behind 

bars makes it impossible for them to victimize the next child, so— 

Mr. WHELAN. Correct, Senator. 

Senator TOOMEY. —that is really important. 

Ms. Newman, now, your background is as a pediatric nurse. 

Ms. NEWMAN. Yes. 

Senator TOOMEY. In your experience, how has this process 

worked for individual children that you have seen in your facility? 

Ms. NEWMAN. Let me back up a minute and say that because the 

CAC is neutral in fact finding, when a case comes in—when a child 

comes in for an interview—when the interviewer does the forensic 

interview, conducts it, there is no pre-set determination that something had to have happened. The questions are specifically asked 

in age- appropriate, open-ended fashion so that the child tells the 

story, if indeed there is a story to tell, in their own words. And, 

nobody has a better day than when the team sits in the room and 

watches that interview and the child says in a very credible fashion, without anybody leading them on, that there was a mistake, 

that somebody did not see what they thought that they saw, and 

there is no further investigation. 

But, then you have all those other cases that come in and you 

have a child that has been victimized, no matter how slight. It 

could just be something—and I do not want to get too graphic, but 

something just over the clothes to something much more brutal and 

horrible. And, in all of those cases, that is when the CAC works 

really well. 

As D.A. Whelan said, you have one statement. It is recorded. 

There is no question that it is not leading. What we often see, and 

I think Mr. Whelan may be able to confirm this, is that what happens is that there are plea bargains that before may never have occurred because you have a defense attorney and a defendant, you 

cannot prove anything, it is just a child that gave that statement, 

and the experience in Montgomery County has been that the district attorney will hand that defense attorney the DVD and say, 
47 

‘‘Why do you not go watch that,’’ and lo and behold, not long afterwards, they come forward and have a plea bargain struck, and that 

is a great day, too, because then that perpetrator is off the street 

and that child never has to enter a courtroom, never has to go 

through that experience again. 

Also, because of the CAC set-up, what you have are victim and 

family advocates and referrals to specialized medical and mental 

health treatment, and that is really important, because the dynamics of child abuse are very different from adult rape and domestic 

violence. As I said in my statement, child abusers put themselves 

in positions of being close to children, and most of the time, it is 

not a sudden act of violence. It takes place over time. The abusers 

take the time to groom their victims. They start with touch. I remember from the Jerry Sandusky testimony, and I know people, 

especially in Pennsylvania, are tired of going back to that, but one 

of the witnesses said, ‘‘You know, you knew when you got into a 

car with Coach Sandusky that his hand was going to be on your 

thigh.’’ That is how abusers work, slowly. 

And, in the 50 percent of the time that it involves a family member, the dynamics of the family become so skewed. The family often 

would rather not say what is going on, because if it is a mother’s 

father or brother or husband or significant other, as it may be, who 

wants to see that that person who is so close to you is really a monster who is doing this to their child. And, there is often the mistaken thought that we can handle this at home. We can do this as 

a family and just keep the perpetrator away from the child. 

But, number one, that often does not happen, because they cannot do that. And, number, two, it just leaves this person out there, 

as in the recent news reports about the Duggar family, where the 

older son—and I am just reading from the papers here—was 

brought back into the home and abused additional children, if 

those allegations are true. But, that would certainly fit the pattern 

of what we see. 

Specialized mental health treatment is important for this. It is 

evidence-based. It is not just going to any old counselor, so that is 

important. Specialized medical treatment with pediatric sexual assault nurse examiners are very important for these children. 

Sometimes for older children—and I will wrap up here, I know 

I am going on—it is important for them to have this medical examination just so they can be told, you are okay. Nobody can see what 

happened to you unless you choose to share it with somebody. That 

is often as important as anything else that we can possibly do at 

a Child Advocacy Center. Thank you. 

Senator TOOMEY. Thank you very much. 

Now, let me go right to one of the arguments that I have heard 

from people who are not supporting my legislation, which is, as you 

know, designed to increase the amount of funds that are distributed to the various crime victims’ groups, and maybe Ms. Moyer 

could lead off, but I would like to ask each of you to address this, 

and this argument is, well, it would be a big bump-up in funds and 

you really probably cannot spend it very well. So, maybe you could 

address that and share with us for the record exactly how you 

would put these resources to work if you had the knowledge that 

you had a sustained funding level at this higher level that would 
48 

be commensurate to the amount of money that is actually going 

into the fund each year. 

Ms. MOYER. Well, first of all, Senator, thank you for the question, because I believe we debunk that myth. I think there is a special Internet place where they have things like that, that, oh, those 

people could not possibly spend that money. Of course, we can. We 

have executive directors taking pagers home and responding to two 

o’clock in the morning calls instead of doing community awareness 

and managing an organization. 

And, let me just—I will leave you with one situation that particularly moved me, although, as you can tell, this is my passion. 

Women Organized Against Rape in Philadelphia, they were under 

construction, and because of a lack of funds, they were unable to 

do individual child counseling and they had to do group counseling. 

And, it was in the reception area. The place was under construction. And, all these kids were sitting and standing and laughing 

and playing, as kids are wont to do, and the construction workers 

came in and said, ‘‘Gee, I did not realize you were running a day 

care center.’’ And, the ED explained to them that this, in fact, was 

a group of children who had been sexually abused. One of the children was a four-year-old who would live with a colostomy bag for 

the rest of her life. And, I apologize for being graphic, but sometimes I think we need to be, because these children are living their 

lives with this constant reminder, physical or emotional, and there 

is no way to undo that. 

I appreciate our collegiality with CACs and our dedication of our 

district attorneys and our sister coalition in child abuse cases, but 

if you have a group of children acting as if it were an ordinary day 

at a day care center, and if you could see the rooms where play 

therapy happens, it looks like a day care center, but it is a place 

where children who have been raped by monsters go to heal, I 

think there would be no doubt in your mind that we could find 

good use for this funding. 

We need more prevention educators. We need outreach to men 

and boys, and in an intentional way. Prevention is no longer a 

dirty word. I think we realize that it does work. And, as a law enforcement officer once said to me, ‘‘Diane, these are one-man crime 

waves,’’ and we need all these resources to get these monsters off 

the street, and with your help, Senator, I think we can do that very 

easily. 

Senator TOOMEY. Thank you. 

Dr. Dierkers, would you care to address the question. 

Ms. DIERKERS. Yes. As I mentioned in my testimony, housing is 

a particular concern for domestic violence victims and we need various forms of housing. Often, economic abuse is a common tactic 

used, and it may take a survivor some time to recover economically 

and be able to support themselves and their children. Legal services, because when children are in a domestic violence home, often, 

the children are being abused, and we know from research now, 

longitudinal research, the children who even witness abuse will 

sustain life-long impacts if there is not support, help, and healing 

for them. 

We were really gearing up in terms of our children’s services, because, as I mentioned, we do see thousands and thousands of chil-
49 

dren through our Domestic Violence Centers every year. We were 

just gearing up specialized services when the recession hit. So, that 

is an area that we would definitely dedicate money to, as well, as 

well as legal services. 

Senator TOOMEY. And, Ms. Newman, my understanding is the 

large majority of Pennsylvania counties do not have their own 

Child Advocacy Center, so victims have a long way to go to get to 

the nearest one in many cases. I assume additional funding would 

help lead to the development of additional facilities, is that true? 

Ms. NEWMAN. Absolutely. In Pennsylvania, there are only 23 

counties that actually have Child Advocacy Centers. the Pennsylvania Task Force on Child Protection in 2012 said that the number 

one priority for the safety of Pennsylvania’s children from sexual 

predators should be to have a Child Advocacy Center, and they 

said within two hours of every child. District Attorney David Heckler, who chaired that task force, said that had there been a CAC 

in Centre County, again, at the time of Jerry Sandusky, that he 

would have been stopped after victim number one. So, how many 

children would that have saved who came forward? We do not even 

know how many never came forward. 

It costs money for these centers. Two hours is a long way. That 

is a long time, especially if you have parents that are taking off 

from work that have to go, that may have to use public transportation to get there. They may have other children that they need 

to bring with them to the center. At the State Chapter of CACs, 

we would like to see that brought down a lot closer to an hour, and 

even that is a long way, because, again, you have children. They 

get tired. They are already traumatized. The family is already 

traumatized. We do not necessarily have to have a CAC in every 

county, as was alluded to. There are a lot of rural areas in Pennsylvania. But, certainly, regional centers need to be developed and 

built to help all of the children have access. Thank you. 

Senator TOOMEY. And just so that everybody understands, you 

folks are not dealing with abstractions. You are dealing with real 

human beings, people who have been victimized. And Dr. Dierkers 

gave a great example of a woman named Kendra and her circumstances. 

Ms. Moyer or Ms. Newman, is there maybe a brief story of a particular victim that you would like to share with us so that we can 

sort of see exactly the kind of person and the circumstances in 

which the work that you do is so helpful? 

Ms. NEWMAN. Do you mind if I go first? 

Ms. MOYER. No, not at all. 

Ms. NEWMAN. Thank you. I am just—I am particularly passionate about one story. He is actually the inspiration and the reason that Montgomery County has a CAC. His name is Sasha. He 

grew up on the Main Line, very close to where we are sitting right 

now. Child abuse knows no economic boundary, zip code, or religion. 

When he was a young child, he was in an intact family, mother, 

father, younger sister. Uncles came down to visit, father’s brothers, 

one of whom was a very well known cantor up on the Upper East 

Side of New York in a large synagogue there. For people that may 

not be familiar, a cantor is a cantor rabbi in the Jewish faith. 
50 

Sasha went from being a very normal child to, as his mother describes, one that she had to try to keep alive, because he suddenly 

walked around with underwear over his head and a knife to his 

throat, tried to jump out of moving cars while she was driving. She 

brought him to numerous therapists who had no idea what was 

going on. And, as Sasha tells the story now as an adult, he said 

he was finally able to disclose to one of the many psychiatrists that 

they were bringing him to when he saw his uncle go in and attempt to abuse his younger sister. And that was what finally allowed him to disclose the terrible rape that had been happening to 

him over and over and over again. 

Sasha’s mother, when she told her husband about it, his response was, ‘‘I probably should have realized what was going on because they did the same thing to me when I was a child.’’ Again, 

the dynamics of intra-familial sexual abuse. It can be generational, 

as well. 

They were brave enough to report it. The mother went to Risa 

Vetri Ferman, our current District Attorney in Montgomery County. She was an Assistant District Attorney at that time. Ten years, 

from when Sasha was seven until he was 17 years old, before that 

case finally ended with a low plea deal for the cantor. 

I remember before I was ever involved with this movement 

watching on the 11 p.m. news, busing in supporters of the cantor 

from the Upper East Side of New York to say to the District Attorney of Montgomery County, ‘‘How dare you prosecute our clergy, 

our member, our leader.’’ 

Sasha went to college. He moved out to Montana to get to this 

area. And, I have had a lot of memorable days at Mission Kids. I 

think that one of the ones that sticks out most in my mind is the 

day that Risa sent him to Mission kids to see, because of what he 

had been through, what developed. And he came into the center 

and I saw this rough, just graduated college student melt back into 

a little boy, and he looked at the stuffed animals around the room 

and he said, ‘‘Oh, my God, I would have loved this place. You feel 

like you are enveloped by the stuffed animals in here.’’ 

And we had a bowl of just snacks on the table, pre- wrapped 

snacks for the kids when they came in. And he said, ‘‘Oh, those are 

great. I am so glad you do not have vending machines.’’ And, I was 

really surprised, and I said, vending machine? Why? It never occurred to me one way or the other, but why? And, he said, ‘‘Because I cannot tell you how many dozens of times I was at police 

stations and the District Attorney’s office and I was there for hours 

and I was hungry and the only thing to eat was in the vending machine.’’ 

That is my story. Thank you. 

Senator TOOMEY. Thank you. 

Ms. MOYER. 

Ms. MOYER. Yes. I would like to talk about—we have not talked 

about the campus sexual assault, and I am happy to say that we 

are addressing that more fully, as well. But, we had a victim and 

the campus judicial hearing did not go well. But, she knew that she 

had a place to go. What I always tell our advocates is that we do 

not make promises we cannot keep. We have confidential services, 

but we have a duty to report, but we always believe our victims. 
51 

The only respite this individual had from what was a botched— 

clearly, a botched hearing at the campus level, and it was very 

problematic. The District Attorney and I, on the side of right, of 

course, were trying to help this victim, but there was a lot of pushback from the campus. But, what the victim did have was belief in 

her story and the offer of safety and services, trauma-informed, and 

the courage to go on with her life and move to another campus and 

successfully graduated because she did not get the justice that she 

deserved, and that does happen to victims quite a bit. But, what 

we do give them is belief, help, hope, and healing, and that is what 

every victim deserves. 

Senator TOOMEY. Thank you very much. 

We are getting to the end of our allotted time here, and I just 

wanted to make sure if any of our witnesses had a final point they 

wanted to make that they felt we did not have a chance to develop 

earlier, this would be a good time. Does anybody have any last 

points? 

Mr. WHELAN. No, just to thank you for hosting this event today, 

Senator. 

Senator TOOMEY. Well, thank you. 

So, let me—really, I want to thank each of our witnesses very 

much. This is very, very helpful and powerful testimony and it will 

help us to make the case for why we need to do the right thing, 

stop the dishonest budgetary gimmicks and start allocating the resources that ought to be going to crime victims’ advocacy groups. 

I want to thank people who are in the audience. I know many 

of the people here are working in the front lines, helping to support 

and help the victims of all kinds of crime. So, I appreciate the work 

that you do day in and day out. I know how hard that work is and 

I am grateful to you for being here. 

I do, once again, want to thank Villanova Law School for making 

this wonderful facility available to us and being kind enough to invite us in to have this hearing. 

And, I just want to assure everybody, this is a high priority of 

mine, and as a member of the Budget Committee, I will be able to 

ensure that we take this up in the committee. I am confident that 

we can pass the legislation in committee, and that will give us a 

chance to bring it to the Senate floor. My hope is that this year, 

we will find a vehicle that will allow us to enact this legislation 

and provide the certainty of funding going forward at this much 

higher level that is, after all, only commensurate to the amount of 

money that criminals are putting into this fund every year. 

So, I really thank you for all your help. I am going to need to 

continue to ask you to help and keep the pressure on my colleagues 

so that we can get this done. But, I am confident we will get this 

across the goal line. 

So, thank you very much, and with that, the hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 11:12 a.m., the committee was adjourned.] 
52 
53 
54 

FIELD HEARING ON TAX–RELATED IDENTITY 

THEFT AND FRAUDULENT TAX RETURNS 

Wednesday, August 26, 2015 

U.S. SENATE

COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET MANCHESTER, NH 

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:00 p.m., in Room 

201, UNH Manchester Campus, 88 Commercial Street, Hon. Kelly 

Ayotte presiding. 

Present: Senator Ayotte. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR AYOTTE 

Senator AYOTTE. I just wanted to welcome all of you here today. 

My name is Senator Kelly Ayotte, and I’m very glad to have the 

opportunity today to hold an important field hearing. 

I serve on the Budget Committee in the Senate, and one of the 

important topics that we have dealt with not only on the Budget 

Committee but, another committee I serve on, the Homeland Security and Government Oversight Committee, is tax-related identity 

theft and fraudulent tax returns. 

So I’m going to call this hearing to order. 

For my constituents that are here today, this will be part of the 

official Senate record. We’re having this as a field hearing, but it 

will be part of the Budget Committee’s official record. So that’s why 

you see me here with the gavel in this setting, and also I’ve got 

some staff members here from Washington, the Budget Committee, 

as well as my own staff. 

So I’m going to call this hearing of the Budget Committee to 

order. 

We have on the first panel two witnesses with us, Ms. Lori 

Weeks from Strafford, New Hampshire; and also Mr. John Walker, 

from New Hampshire as well. 

I will begin this hearing by giving an opening statement, and 

then I’m going to turn to our witnesses to provide us with information and to give their opening statements. 

I want to thank all of you for joining us today for this important 

field hearing of the Senate Budget Committee. I would like to 

thank all the witnesses on both panels that you’ll hear today for 

their time and for their willingness to participate in this important 

discussion. 

We’re here today to discuss a growing problem not only in New 

Hampshire but across the country, and that’s tax-related identity 

theft. Tax-related identity theft is a very serious problem that’s 

growing, unfortunately, at epidemic proportions. According to the 

Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, about 2.4 million taxpayers’ names or Social Security numbers were used to file 

fraudulent tax returns in 2013, when this data was looked at. 

That’s a 10-fold increase from 2010, and we’ve seen further activity 

in 2014 and beyond. 

With major data breaches occurring more frequently, most recently with the Office of Personnel Management, when millions of 

people who have gone through a Federal background check had 

their personal information breached. I’m concerned that we will see 
55 

additional cases of tax fraud that impact even more taxpayers in 

the future. 

Filing a tax return should be easy, but for an increasing number 

of taxpayers, they find themselves victims of identity theft. This is 

too often the beginning of a frustrating and burdensome process 

that can take even months or years to resolve. These innocent taxpayers frequently find themselves in a confusing and frustrating 

maze of bureaucratic red tape. I’ve heard stories from my constituents, some of whom are here today and some of whom couldn’t be 

here today, who have been caught up in this maze of frustration. 

Not only do taxpayers have to spend too often countless hours 

collecting and submitting the necessary documents to prove their 

identities, they’re often given conflicting instructions and inconsistent messages from the IRS. 

Or worse, they’ve had a lot of difficulties reaching the IRS. Instead of focusing on regaining and safeguarding their personal 

identities, tax fraud victims spend hours simply trying to prove 

who they are actually to the IRS, and that’s wrong. I’m very glad 

to have the IRS Commissioner here today. We must do more to address this issue and better assist taxpayers who are facing this 

problem. 

One of those taxpayers we have here today is Lori Weeks from 

Strafford, New Hampshire, and I want to thank Lori for her willingness to share her story today and for her courage. Lori has endured something that no mother should ever have to experience, 

and that’s the loss of her daughter, Madison, in a tragic car accident. That heartbreaking loss was compounded when Lori’s her 

husband learned that Maddi’s identity had been stolen and used to 

file three fraudulent tax returns. 

But when Lori asked the IRS for copies of the fraudulent returns 

so that she could find out how much of her family’s personal information was compromised, the IRS said it could not provide her 

with information or a copy of the fraudulent tax return, citing privacy concerns. 

Tax fraud victims shouldn’t be left in the dark regarding the full 

extent of what personal information was stolen, and the least the 

IRS can do is to provide them with copies of the fraudulent returns 

so that they can understand how their information was manipulated and used fraudulently. 

On behalf of Lori and other New Hampshire families I wrote to 

Commissioner Koskinen—who is here with us today, and he will be 

testifying on the second panel—this spring and asked the IRS to 

change its policy and to provide victims of tax fraud with copies of 

fraudulent returns filed on behalf of the tax fraud victim. 

In response, the Commissioner has agreed to establish a process 

in which identity theft victims can obtain copies of fraudulent returns, and I look forward to hearing an update on where that policy change is today. I thank the Commissioner for agreeing to 

change that policy, and I certainly urge the agency to get this process in place as soon as possible. 

I’ve also heard from several tax fraud victims in New Hampshire 

who continue to struggle to get their refunds from the IRS, even 

after having proven their identities to the agency. One constituent 

from Bath told me that the IRS told him that he should receive a 
56 

refund within six weeks of proving his identity. When eight weeks 

passed without any progress, he called the IRS again to follow up. 

After waiting on hold for 45 minutes, this individual was told that 

processing his case would take up to six months. 

The IRS’ mission is to provide America’s taxpayers top-quality 

service by helping them understand and meet their tax responsibilities, and by applying the tax law with integrity and fairness to all. 

However, these examples demonstrate the IRS is falling short of 

fulfilling this mission. 

In her latest report to Congress, Nina Olson, the Taxpayer Advocate, notes that the IRS continues to view itself as an enforcement 

agency first and a service agency second. I know the IRS is taking 

some important steps to reduce fraud that have been recently announced. I appreciate those efforts, and we want to hear about 

those efforts today, including enhanced collaboration with representatives of tax preparation and software firms and other tax 

industry partners, and a new policy to earlier match W–2 information received from employees and employers. However, it is clear 

that much more must be done to prevent fraud from occurring in 

the first place to make sure that people aren’t victims of identity 

theft and to better help victims when fraud does occur. 

Congress can also play a very important role to the extent that 

legislative fixes are needed to reduce fraud. Earlier this year I 

worked with Senator Ron Johnson from Wisconsin, who is the 

chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, and Mark Warner 

of Virginia to help introduce the bipartisan Social Security Identity 

Defense Act of 2015. This proposed legislation would require the 

IRS to notify an individual if it has reason to believe that someone’s Social Security number has been fraudulently used. So notifying victims is incredibly important. It also requires the IRS notify 

law enforcement, and requires that the Social Security Administration to notify employers who submit fraudulently used Social Security numbers. This bill adds civil penalties and extends jail time for 

those who fraudulently use an individual’s Social Security number. 

The purpose of our hearing today is to take a critical look at how 

the IRS handles tax-related identity theft cases, with the goal of 

identifying necessary steps the IRS must take to improve its response to this growing problem. 

I want to welcome our first panel, Lori Weeks of Strafford, and 

John Walker, a tax preparer based in Concord, who will share his 

experience working on tax-related identity theft cases for his clients. 

During the second panel we will, hear from the IRS Commissioner, John Koskinen. We will also hear from the Inspector General, J. Russell George, from the Treasury Department. We appreciate the Inspector General being here today. We will also hear 

from Mr. Christopher Lee of the National Taxpayer Advocate Service, to examine the IRS’ administrative practices and look at ways 

on how we can improve service to taxpayers and make sure that 

we’re more responsive and can take steps that need to be taken to 

prevent identity theft in the first place. 
57 
58 
59 

Again, I want to thank all of you for being here today, and now 

I would like to call on our first witness. 

Again, I want to thank Lori Weeks for being here to offer her 

opening statement. 

Ms. Weeks. 

STATEMENT OF LORI WEEKS, STRAFFORD, TAX–RELATED 

IDENTITY THEFT VICTIM 

Ms. WEEKS. Good afternoon. My name is Lori Weeks, or, as I 

prefer to be referred to, Maddi’s mama. This is my daughter, Madison Charlotte Weeks. Madison was born on June 23, 2006. She was 

our first child. Through the years, Madison grew into a precocious 

little thing with a brilliant mind and an empathy for people that 

is rarely seen in a child her age. That empathy pushed her to continuously thank each and every veteran we passed on the street, 

to raise money for the fight against childhood cancer and to volunteer for the March of Dimes, the organization that helped save her 

baby sister when she was born prematurely. 

Like I said before, Madison had a brilliant mind and in 2nd 

grade tested at an end of 5th grade reading, writing, math and 

science level. We were so proud but not surprised. Madison was a 

talented dancer and was well loved by every person she had ever 

met. 

Madison was a Girl Scout, an artist, an animal lover, a big sister, 

a best friend, my best friend. She had dreamed of opening a veterinarian’s office when she grew up that offered free care to those who 

could not afford it. 

On February 19, 2014, on our way to dance class, in the middle 

of her 6th year of dancing, we hit black ice. I hit black ice. We went 

off the road. We were okay, but in the blink of an eye another motorist, distracted, did not see our vehicle and did not slow down. 

She hit our car and took the life of our precious daughter. Our lives 

are irreparably destroyed. 

In March of 2015, my husband and I prepared to file our taxes. 

As we walked in I was having trouble breathing. Tears were already welling in my eyes. As we sat and reviewed our tax documents, I could not stop crying. This would be the last time, legally, 

on paper, that I could say I am the mother of two daughters. I finished up this painful process and later that day my husband went 

to sign our documents. This is when we found out. What we had 

left, that fleeting moment in time, had been stolen. Madison’s identity had been stolen and someone else had claimed her on their 

taxes. 

When your child goes on before you, all you have left is their 

memory, their identity, and you will tirelessly work to protect it. 

All I could hear in my head was that I had failed to protect Maddi’s 

life, and now I had failed to protect her identity. Our tax preparer 

could offer little assistance. She was kind but completely unaware 

of what our next step should be. 

We filed a police report with our local police department, only for 

them to treat us like we were crazy for doing so and telling us that 

it was unnecessary. I spent hours and hours on the phone trying 

to figure out what to do. Most of that was spent on hold. I spoke 

to multiple agencies and multiple representatives within each of 
60 

those agencies, most of whom, their calls led me back to another 

agent who just couldn’t help me. Many encouraged me to file without Maddi on our return so we could get our money. It was never 

about the money. I had to get Maddi’s name back. It’s all we have 

now. So we just kept searching for answers, searching for someone 

to help us. 

That is when a friend reached out to me and told me to contact 

Senator Ayotte’s office. From there the ball really got rolling. We 

were put in contact with the Tax Advocate’s office and they were 

able to see that Maddi’s name had been filed at least three times, 

all of which had been rejected. Despite these attempts to fraudulently claim our child, we were never contacted by any IRS representative to make us aware that this had happened. 

With the help of Senator Ayotte’s office and the Tax Advocate we 

were able to go through the proper avenues to protect her name 

further, stop any kind of continuing fraud using her Social Security 

number or otherwise, and we were able to file our taxes, as a family of four, for the very last time. 

We received our return, and then that was it, nothing to tell us 

what these disturbed individuals who would raid a deceased child’s 

identity knew about our daughter. Was it just her Social’ Did they 

know anything about her medical history’ Do they have personal 

information about her death’ Do we know them’ It was quite literally, ’Here’s your check and be gone with you.’ 

After a newspaper article about our family and a few television 

interviews, we were told the IRS is going to be giving victims access to the fraudulent returns and the information contained within them. That was months ago and we still are no closer to knowing what we must know than we were the day we found out 

Maddi’s identity had been stolen. 

More than 50 percent of grieving parents, parents whose children 

passed away before their 13th birthday, will have their child’s identity stolen. And many will never even get as far as we have. We 

are not the rule; we are the exception. And it seems like the bad 

guys win in every case because although we got our daughter’s 

name back, we do not know what they know about our daughter, 

and they will likely never face punishment for the crimes committed against our family. 

It’s time we step up and we empower our citizens to protect 

themselves and their children against these predators and to say 

enough is enough. Thank you. 

[Applause.] 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Weeks follows:] 
61 
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63 

Senator AYOTTE. Thank you. Thank you so much. I know all of 

our thoughts and prayers are with you for your courage. Thank you 

for being willing to be at this hearing today to help other parents 

so that they don’t have to go through this. 

I would like to also welcome Mr. John Walker. Mr. Walker is 

here to talk about his experience as a professional and his work 

with many clients who, unfortunately, have dealt with identity 

theft issues and theft of their personal information. 

Mr. Walker, thank you for being here. 

STATEMENT OF JOHN C. WALKER, ENROLLED AGENT, J. 

WALKER & COMPANY LLC 

Mr. WALKER. Thank you, Senator, and thank you for holding this 

hearing. My name is John Walker. I am an enrolled agent in private practice. I was asked to testify today from the perspective of 

an enrolled agent and the impact tax-related identity theft is having on the professional community. 

Just to clarify, for those who are not familiar, when we talk 

about the professional community, I’m referring to the four groups 

of tax professionals that we generally talk about: enrolled agents, 

CPAs, attorneys, and then all other preparers. Generally, it is enrolled agents like myself, CPAs and attorneys who are authorized 

by Circular 230, which is the Treasury regulations, to represent 

taxpayers before the Internal Revenue Service. Other preparers, 

with a few very limited special exceptions, do not represent taxpayers. 

I represent taxpayers such as Lori and others who have problems 

dealing with the IRS, have these experiences, have jobs, family, responsibilities that they must move forward with, and they turn to 

someone like me, or an attorney, or a CPA, to handle the dealing 

with the IRS, do the investigation, because we know the system. 

As a professional, I am a member of the National Association of 

Enrolled Agents, the National Association of Tax Professionals, the 

National Society of Accountants, and I’m currently on the Board of 

the New Hampshire chapter of the National Society of Accountants. 

On a monthly basis I participate with members of the IRS and 

15 to 30 other tax professionals from around New York and New 

England in what are called IMRS telephone conferences. IMRS is 

the IRS’ own Issue Management Resolution System. 

In addition, twice a year I participate in taxpayer liaison meetings, one of which we host here in New Hampshire, and that is two 

dozen tax professionals and IRS managers meeting for half a day 

to discuss in depth the issues in our tax system. 

So with that as a background, I can tell you the issue that I am 

hearing over and over and over again from other professionals is 

that as a result of tax-related identity theft and the escalation of 

fraudulent returns, tax professionals are increasingly finding themselves shut out of being able to get the information they need to 

help their clients, to help the victims of these identity thefts. 

It’s regrettable, but in their haste to respond to the explosion of 

fraudulent returns, the IRS has severely restricted or blocked entirely access to taxpayer information by those three professional 

groups—enrolled agents, CPAs and attorneys—who are responsible 
64 

for representing those victims. As a representative, just like an attorney, we speak for the victim. We step into their shoes, we put 

in the time, the hours, to try to find solutions. 

This is happening even when a taxpayer has specifically authorized us on a Federal power of attorney, which is an IRS document, 

to represent them in the identity theft matter. I recently had one 

that was filed in August, and it is continually rejected for being 

posted because their 2014 tax year has already been flagged as 

having had an identity theft. 

The general consensus of so many professionals right now is that 

we feel like the IRS, instead of working with the professional community to speed resolution of these cases, is making it increasingly 

difficult and sometimes impossible to help these clients. 

Furthermore, and this is terribly important from a professional 

point of view, the victims of identity theft are still expected to comply with all other aspects of the tax law, to timely file their returns, pay their taxes, make estimated tax payments, continue installment payments, and fulfill obligations under an Offer and 

Compromise, if they have one. 

Ordinary, routine tax problems will arise in those other compliance issues—the estimated payments posted to the wrong account 

or the wrong year, just to give you one example. To assist the taxpayer with any of those problems and do it quickly and efficiently 

and get it corrected requires that we continue to have access to the 

same information we had before the identity theft occurred. 

On a case I’m currently working now, the taxpayers came out of 

bankruptcy last year. As part of their bankruptcy plan, they’re paying on past tax debt. I cannot get any records to find out if those 

payments are being correctly applied to their past tax debt, and 

that is something that we used to have routinely as a matter of 

being able to represent people. 

Normally, a representative would have online access to a client’s 

tax information using a tool that’s very different from the tool that 

was out there and became such a problem earlier this year. The 

professional tool works much more like what most of us use to 

manage our personal bank accounts, perhaps even our medical accounts, make our utility payments, credit card accounts, insurance, 

student records, and the like. In other words, access to it is known 

only to us. 

What makes this all the more frustrating for tax professionals is 

that very often a representative or someone posing as a representative, or someone claiming to be the taxpayer, can call the customer 

service number. Granted, they have to sit on hold anywhere from 

an hour to two hours, so it becomes an endurance contest. They get 

a customer service rep. They can answer a few simple questions, 

Social Security number, address and so on, and the representative 

will mail, fax, or even read the information to them over the phone. 

So from a professional standpoint, the information that we used 

to be able to get in 5 or 10 minutes online and get a problem 

solved, now we may be able to get if we’re willing to sit for two 

hours on the phone and talk to someone. It’s delaying the whole 

process, and that is creating a backlog of unsolved, routine problems in addition to and over and above and beyond the identity 

theft problems, which are exploding. 
65 

One specific example, a suggestion I can make to the IRS, is that 

with the professional community, they ought to be doing exactly 

the opposite. They should be requiring professionals to get the information online, beef up the security around that tool, and that 

would relieve some of the burden on the phone system, which does 

have to be there to service taxpayers who are not represented. 

For example, recently I had to get a copy of a bank statement 

on my personal account. There were only two ways I could get it. 

I could not get it by calling the bank and saying please mail it to 

me. I had to either show up at a branch office with a photo identity 

and prove who I was and they would print it for me at that office, 

or I could go online to my account where I have set up the security, 

three security questions and so on, and answer the various security 

protocols, submit a request, and it would be mailed to me at the 

address on record. 

I’d like to point out that enrolled agents, CPAs and attorneys are 

all professional individuals who have made a substantial investment in both obtaining a professional license and maintaining it on 

an annual basis. We are known to our various licensing agencies, 

and we have often been the subject, depending on the agency, of 

criminal background checks and even fingerprinting. In the case of 

enrolled agents, we’ve been vetted by the IRS itself. So if the IRS 

does not have confidence in letting us have access to the information, they’re saying they don’t have confidence in their own vetting 

process. 

Furthermore, we know our clients personally, usually through 

many years of working with the same client, sometimes decades. 

As a result, we also have access to a substantial amount of financial detail. This is a resource that the IRS could be using to quickly 

identify who is the real John Walker or Lori or Bill or Joe or Susie, 

and they’re not doing it. Instead, taxpayers are being told that once 

they file an identity theft affidavit, that it may take six months to 

a year before the IRS does its own investigation. That seems totally 

unnecessary. 

Furthermore, I think the delay is absurd because in far less time 

you can get a passport. In four to six weeks, the State Department 

can determine with a high degree of certainty, even in this post9/11 era, who somebody’s identity is. And if they need to expedite 

it, they can do it in two or three weeks. 

In the case of tax-related identity theft, one very obvious and I 

think simple solution to establish who is the real individual would 

be to ask them to show up at an IRS office and present their passport. And if they don’t have a passport, they can get one in less 

time than the IRS conducts those investigations. The length of that 

investigation frustrates our clients terribly because they hear nothing for months, and they wonder if they’re going to come back and 

say, well, we don’t believe it’s you. Meanwhile, they don’t know 

what else is going on with their financial lives. 

There are a number of further examples I can give you, the kinds 

of difficulties we run into dealing with the IRS, and I have a great 

deal of respect for everyone at the IRS I deal with. We are professionals. We understand they are dedicated people trying to do a 

very difficult job. 
66 

One case I’m currently working provides some good examples. 

Chris and Jane Stevens—not their real names—are a couple in 

their early 60s. They got into financial difficulty because they tried 

to keep a business running in New Hampshire during a downturn 

in the economy. They got way over-extended on their mortgages, 

ended up in a bankruptcy that dragged on for several years, finally 

came out of bankruptcy last August. Chris, by the way, was identified with inoperable but treatable throat cancer, so he was out of 

work. His wife continues to work, Jane continues to work. 

In February they received a check in the mail from Sunrise Bank in California for $9,855. The accompanying paperwork explained 

that this was their 2014 Federal tax refund, which was listed as 

$9,945 less $90 in processing fees. The letter explained that the 

bank had tried to direct deposit it to the account specified on the 

return but for some reason was unable to do so, so they mailed 

them a paper check. 

The Stevens’ immediately knew this was wrong because we had 

not even begun to prepare their 2014 return, and they are very 

honest people. They also knew and were already worried about the 

fact that their identities had been stolen in the Anthem data 

breach just a few weeks earlier. So they contacted me and we 

quickly prepared and filed the identity theft affidavits with the 

IRS. We have received one communication indicating that they 

have received the paperwork, and that was filed in February. 

Meanwhile, this looked like we had caught it early and we 

should be able to solve this situation really easily because we had 

the check, the money was not stolen, it was not gone. I began investigating how the fraudulent funds could be returned to the 

Treasury, and apparently it’s a lot easier to get money out of the 

Treasury than it is to get it back in. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. WALKER. No one had any answers. So I reached out to one 

of my contacts in the IRS stakeholder liaison, which is a group that 

interacts extensively with the professional community, for help in 

answering that question, how do we get the money back in. It actually took her a little over a month to find a door to put the money 

back in. She got the name and address of an IRS office in Fresno, 

California where we could send the check. So on April 15th—maybe 

that was a bad omen—we mailed the check with a cover letter explaining the situation, included all possible identification. Incidentally, much of that was also printed on the check. We mailed it Priority Mail, signature required, and within a few days we received 

the name, signature, and identity number of the person who signed 

for it at the IRS office. 

We filed their 2014 tax return, which had a balance due, and we 

thought we were pretty well done. One of the obvious problems in 

this whole story is this was someone who already had a tax debt. 

They had a balance due on their 2014 return, and yet somehow 

somebody imitating them with their stolen identity was able to get 

$9,945 shipped out of the U.S. Treasury without ever checking the 

balance due on that identity number. 

The first week of August, the Stevens received a call from a revenue officer in Holtsville, New York. Because I was their representative, I returned the call to Holtsville, spoke with this revenue offi-
67 

cer, and she wanted the Stevens to return the check. That’s why 

she was calling. I explained to her that we had mailed the check 

back in April and how we’d done it and how we got the address, 

where we had sent it and so on. 

Well, she checked—no sign of it on the system. She didn’t believe 

it had been returned, or if it had been, it had been lost. Her words. 

There was no record of it. So I said, well, look, I convinced her to 

let me fax over the same package we had, the cover letter, a copy 

of the check, all the identification information, the signature of the 

person who signed for it, postal transcript of every place it went 

between New Hampshire and California. 

I sent that fax within the hour, never heard from her. Two or 

three days later I called. Her only response was that she hadn’t received the fax. She hadn’t bothered to call and say she hadn’t received the fax, which is something normally one professional would 

do with another. I work with attorneys and CPAs all the time. If 

I say I’m going to fax something and I don’t, or they say they’re 

going to fax something to me, there’s a follow-up call: ’Hey, I didn’t 

get your fax.’ Didn’t hear anything. 

The revenue officer instead shipped the case over to exam with 

a comment that they could pursue the client for the money, and 

that was the extent of her involvement with it. 

Just a few days later we received a letter, this time from the 

Kansas City campus. So now we’ve got California, Holtsville, New 

York, and Kansas City involved. Kansas City is demanding—this 

letter demands that the Stevens’ either return the check or pay the 

$9,855. The letter was dated August 12. They have until September 

3rd to do one or the other. We obviously can’t return a check we’ve 

already returned and that’s been lost by the IRS. 

So at that point, Jane Stevens and I—and it was necessary for 

both of us to get involved so the bank could be sure of this—got 

in touch with Sunrise Bank, their fraud department, and we were 

able to establish that the check, in fact, had never been cashed, 

which was fortunate. We also learned that the funds are still in the 

account at Sunrise Bank, and Sunrise Bank is only too happy to 

return them. The bank does actually have a process because Sunrise Bank, as many professionals will recognize, is an outfit that 

processes tax refund third-party products for a lot of software companies. They actually have a process in place to get funds back to 

the Treasury. 

Jane authorized them to proceed with that. It will take at least 

15 days to get that, but it does require first that they get cooperation from the IRS and an agreement that they will accept the return of the funds. Then we have the small issue of making sure 

they get credited to the Stevens’ account. 

In the meantime, however, the bank’s fraud department can’t 

provide us with any written confirmation to explain to Kansas City 

what actually is happening. That responsibility falls to me. 

As I was about to end the conversation with the fraud department, the representative said she had one other thing she had to 

point out to me. They are required before they return the funds to 

try again to deposit the funds in the bank account specified by the 

thief on the fraudulent return. I won’t say anything about that. 

[Laughter.] 
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Mr. WALKER. The disturbing part in that, however, is that the 

IRS has the power to subpoena the bank records and see all it can 

from that account, see whatever they can learn about it. They also 

have the power to levy that account and seize those funds before 

they go back to the thief, by chance, because if they don’t get them 

back, what they are going to do is turn around and in the next few 

months they will be sending my client notices that they’re going to 

levy their accounts to get the money back. 

That’s a fairly typical situation that as professionals we have to 

deal with, and we’re frustrated because we are professionals. We 

are willing to work with the IRS. We have a wealth of information 

about our clients. It’s a resource that’s not being put to good use. 

Thank you, Senator. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Walker follows:] 
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Senator AYOTTE. Thank you. It’s pretty shocking when you hear 

that’s a typical story, what you’ve done just for these two clients. 

I want to thank both of you for your testimony, and I just have 

a few follow-up questions, and then we’ll get to the second panel. 

I want to ask you, Ms. Weeks, in terms of what you’ve been dealing with, how did you first learn that Maddi’s Social Security number was actually used in a fraudulent return’ What happened to 

you when you did learn that and tried to call the IRS’ 

Ms. WEEKS. We were basically kind of given the run-around by 

each office. I don’t think it was necessarily intentional. I really 

think that everyone we spoke to had no idea where to go next. Specifically because she was a minor and because she had passed 

away, people didn’t know what our next step should be. They were 

mostly thinking that we were concerned with our return and getting the money, but that was not our primary concern. 

We could have easily filed and gotten the return back and then 

gone through the process, I was told anywhere from six months to 

a year at that point, to regain Madison’s identity, but that was 

never an option for us. We were not going to let them—not the IRS 

but the thieves—take from us the last chance we had on paper to 

say that Madison was our child, that we had two children in our 

family, in our hearts for the rest of our lives. We are a family of 

four, but this was the last chance to say on paper that we were a 

family of four. 

So when we called the offices and pretty much everyone said, 

well, why don’t you just file, it can go through, it was just a big 

run-around. It was impossible to prove that she was ours, but it 

was super easy for someone to take her away from us. That part 

didn’t make sense to me. I had to provide not only my identifying 

information with a birth certificate, Social Security card, driver’s license, but I also actually had to send over my daughter’s death certificate to the IRS to prove that she had passed away, as if I would 

call and state that my 7-year-old child was gone when she was not. 

I had to provide multiple copies of that information to multiple 

agencies. 

Senator AYOTTE. Different people. 

Ms. WEEKS. Different people within the same agency. 

Senator AYOTTE. So you were never assigned one point of contact. 

Ms. WEEKS. Never. The only time I was was when I started 

working with your office and the Tax Advocate’s office was assigned to me. Other than that, I just kept getting pushed from one 

person to the next person to the next person, and online there was 

very little help as well. It wasn’t even a resource that says, okay, 

this has happened to you and these are the steps you need to take. 

It was all over the board and no one website could give us concrete 

steps as to your child’s identity has been stolen, this is what you 

need to do next, after this you do this, make sure you keep copies 

of this. 

Like I said, the police department made us feel like we were 

being kind of silly filing a police report with them. But then speaking with someone in the IRS office, they said, oh, if you hadn’t gotten that, we couldn’t have moved forward. But even the police department, our tax preparer, none of them were 100 percent sure if 
76 

we even needed to do that, but we wanted to cover all of our bases, 

so we did. 

Senator AYOTTE. And I know that, as I understand it, you’ve 

heard from other families that have gone through this as well’ 

Ms. WEEKS. Many. 

Senator AYOTTE. Unfortunately. 

Ms. WEEKS. Yes. I am a part of several online support groups for 

grieving families, and when we started going through this, just like 

I do a lot, I shared on the website what we were going through, 

and very quickly the page filled up with ’Us too, us too, us too.’ And 

if it wasn’t their child, it was their sister’s child’s identity had been 

stolen. Multiple friends on Facebook and through personal conversations spoke to me about their family members going through 

very similar things. 

A friend of mine, her cousin passed away several years ago when 

he was 19 years old, and his identity was stolen, and the IRS refused to correct the fraudulent return because a check had been 

mailed and the person who stole his identity had cashed it, and 

they told his parents, his grieving parents, that they couldn’t prove 

that they weren’t the ones that received the check and cashed it, 

so they refused to correct the situation. It’s been five years and 

they are still fighting for their son’s identity. It’s not about the 

money for them, just like it wasn’t for us. It was about saying that 

this child is ours and somebody taking that from you. 

Senator AYOTTE. Thanks. 

Mr. Walker, you had referenced the history of having your professional history and dealing with this, how things have changed. 

When has this changed’ You used to be able to get better access 

for your clients to be able to help manage their day-to-day tax 

issues, but also resolve issues. So can you give us some perspective 

on—— 

Mr. WALKER. Yes. In the last 18 to 24 months is when we started 

seeing this freeze come on. When you work a client’s issue for multiple years, as I do, you’re constantly going back to make sure payments have been made and applied to the right year and so on. So 

you need that access to see those records. 

Senator AYOTTE. And how has the response time been, as someone who is a professional? You talked about an hour or two trying 

to get through. Has that been your historical experience, or do you 

think that—— 

Mr. WALKER. Phone service has always been time-consuming. 

There are certain times of the day, if you time it carefully, you can 

get through faster than others, and as a professional you learn 

when those times are. 

One of the problems, of course, with the phone service is that the 

call gets routed anywhere, all over the country. You’re never talking to the same individual, so you don’t get the same answer. In 

fact, you can call as a professional trying to settle a payment plan, 

and they’ll tell you they want the information on a 433A. You call 

back when you’ve got that financial information on a 433A and that 

person says, oh, I only work a 433F, and on it goes. 

I had one client who owed money. He made seven calls to try to 

pay the balance due and find out what he had to do. He got a different story from every collection agent, and then he came to me. 
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It took me five calls. This was somebody who wanted to pay in full 

his tax debt in four years, and it was an argument over whether 

his financial information was going to be on an A, a B, an F, or 

one of the others. There are five different 433’s. 

Senator AYOTTE. And how do you think we could resolve that’ It 

sounds like getting back to allowing professionals to have tools that 

they’ve had in the past to communicate on behalf of their clients, 

and also more consistency in terms of who you’re dealing with 

when you call, as opposed to being bounced around? 

Mr. WALKER. Yes. There should be, when you’re working these 

cases, it would make sense to have one point of contact. 

Senator AYOTTE. Assigned to you. 

Mr. WALKER. Yes. It would speed things up. If we had access to 

the online tools, the thing is we have the knowledge and the experience to read those transcripts, to know what’s going on, to do the 

investigation. So when we call we’re not saying, hey, we’ve got this 

problem. We’re calling saying the estimated tax payments for 2013 

were applied to 2008 and they shouldn’t have been, that’s supposed 

to be these payments. We call with solutions. 

Senator AYOTTE. Well, I want to thank both of you for taking the 

time to be here today to testify before this committee. It’s very important to hear the perspective of what are the difficulties that taxpayers are facing, and I know that there are many of my constituents who are here, who have written me, who have experienced, 

unfortunately, similar situations where they feel that they’ve gotten the run-around. 

So I want to thank both of you for being here, and I’m going to 

call the second panel up, and I’m glad that our second panel certainly were able to be present and hear directly your experiences 

because they’re in a position where, hopefully, they can address 

these concerns. So thank you both very much for spending the time 

here. 

Ms. WEEKS. Thank you for this opportunity. 

Senator AYOTTE. Thank you. 

Mr. WALKER. Thank you, Senator. 

Senator AYOTTE. Appreciate it. 

[Pause.] 

Senator AYOTTE. I want to thank you for being here today, and 

I appreciate that you had the opportunity to hear from Ms. Weeks 

and Mr. Walker and hear the experiences that they’ve had with 

identity theft, either themselves, unfortunately, or on behalf of 

their clients. 

First I would like to welcome the IRS Commissioner, John 

Koskinen, as well as the Treasury Inspector General, J. Russell 

George, for Tax Administration for the Department of the Treasury, and Mr. Christopher Lee, a Senior Attorney Adviser for the 

National Taxpayer Advocate Service, and thank all of you for being 

here today. 

I would ask you, I know we have your written testimony, and 

certainly you can summarize that if you’d like to. 

So I would ask the Commissioner of the IRS to offer his testimony first. 

Mr. Koskinen. 
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STATEMENT OF HONORABLE JOHN A. KOSKINEN, 

COMMISSIONER, INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Thank you, Senator Ayotte. Thanks for the opportunity to discuss the IRS’ efforts to combat stolen identity refund 

fraud and to protect taxpayer information from cyber-security 

threats. 

Securing our systems and protecting taxpayer information is a 

top priority for the IRS. Over the past few years we have devoted 

as much time and attention to this challenge as possible, even with 

our constrained resources. Since 2010, we have increased our dedicated spending in this area from just over $20 million to $430 million, and we’ve been making steady progress both in terms of protecting against fraudulent refund claims and prosecuting those who 

engage in this crime. 

Thanks to the work of our Criminal Investigation Division, over 

2,000 individuals have been convicted on Federal charges related 

to refund fraud involving identity theft, over the past few years. 

We currently have about 1,700 open investigations being worked by 

more than 400 IRS criminal investigators. And since 2013, we have 

initiated more than three dozen cases that involve one or more victims who are New Hampshire residents. 

The total number of identity theft-related convictions and open 

investigations is actually larger than what I just described, when 

you factor in the important work being done by law enforcement 

agencies at the state and local level, in New Hampshire and 

around the country. The IRS works in close collaboration with 

those agencies. During calendar year 2014, the IRS protected more than $15 billion in refunds, including those related to identity theft. We continue to improve our efforts at stopping fraudulent refunds from 

going out the door. For example, we have improved our processing 

filters, allowing us this year to suspend about 3.2 million suspicious returns and hold them for further review, an increase of 

over 500,000 from the year before. 

And we continue to help taxpayers who have been victims of 

identity theft. The IRS has 3,000 people working directly on identity theft-related cases, and we’ve trained more than 35,000 employees who regularly work with taxpayers so that these employees 

have the tools to help with identity theft situations when they 

arise. 

In addition, we recently completed our efforts to centralize victim 

assistance with our new Identity Theft Victim Assistance Organization. This has allowed us to consolidate work being done by four 

different parts of the IRS into one business operating division. It’s 

also important to note that we provide taxpayers, victimized by 

identity theft with a single point of contact at the IRS via a special 

toll-free telephone line. Taxpayers who become identity theft victims in 2015 can expect to have their situation resolved in less 

than 120 days, far more quickly than in previous years when cases 

could take over 300 days to resolve. I am a little concerned about 

references made to six months or longer to resolve those cases. 

That’s not our experience overall. 

While this marks a significant improvement, we are continuing 

to work to find ways to shorten this time and ease the burden iden-
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tity theft places on these victims. In 2014, the IRS worked with victims to resolve and close approximately 826,000 cases of identity 

theft. 

While the IRS has improved its ability to stop individuals from 

perpetrating stolen identity refund fraud, we continue to see an increase in organized crime syndicates around the world engaging in 

these crimes. These cyber-criminals have been able to gather significant amounts of personal information as a result of data 

breaches at sources outside the IRS, which makes protecting taxpayers increasingly challenging and difficult. 

A good illustration of this problem is the unauthorized attempts 

to gain access to our Get Transcript application earlier this year. 

In this instance, the criminals already had accumulated large 

amounts of stolen taxpayer information from other sources which 

allowed them in some cases to access individual prior year tax returns. We shut down the Get Transcript application and it will remain disabled until we make modifications and further strengthen 

security for this application. 

To improve our efforts against this complex and evolving threat, 

the IRS held an unprecedented sit-down meeting in March with the 

leaders of the electronic tax industry, the software industry, and 

state tax administrators. All of us agreed to leverage this publicprivate partnership to help battle stolen identity refund fraud. Motivating us was the understanding that no single organization can 

fight this type of fraud alone. We spent 12 weeks studying what 

needed to be done, and in June we announced new steps to provide 

stronger protections for taxpayers and the nation’s tax system. The 

critical point for taxpayers to understand is that new protections 

will be in place by the time they have to file tax returns in 2016. 

The result is that the Federal Government, states and private industry will stop more fraud related to identity theft up-front, and 

to the extent fraudulent returns do get through, we will have better post-filing analytics to determine ways to adjust our security filters. We will also continue to enhance our methods of tracking 

down the criminals and add to those 2,000 individuals already 

serving jail time for Federal tax-related identity theft. 

Going forward, the IRS and its partners will continue collaborating to address longer-term issues and build lasting changes. 

Congress, as you note, has an important role to play in the fight 

against stolen identity refund fraud. Adequate funding for the IRS 

is critical. Congress can also help by passing several legislative proposals. One of the most important of these would accelerate the 

due dates of third-party information returns such as W–2’s that 

would allow us to match these documents against income tax returns earlier in the tax-filing process, and would help us more 

quickly spot errors and detect potential fraud. 

Senator Ayotte, this concludes my statement. I’d be happy to 

take questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Koskinen follows:] 
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Senator AYOTTE. Thank you, Commissioner. 

We will now hear from the Treasury Inspector General, J. Russell George, for the Tax Administration Department of the Treasury. 

STATEMENT OF HONORABLE J. RUSSELL GEORGE, INSPECTOR GENERAL FOR TAX ADMINISTRATION DEPARTMENT OF 

THE TREASURY 

Mr. GEORGE. Thank you, Senator Ayotte, for hosting this hearing 

and the opportunity to provide testimony on the important subject 

of identity theft and the impact it has on both the Internal Revenue Service and taxpayers. 

The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, or 

TIGTA, has provided ongoing oversight and testimony on tax 

fraud-related identity theft. Our audit work shows that while the 

IRS is making progress in detecting and resolving identity theft 

and assisting victims, improvements are still needed. 

My comments today will focus on the results of our prior audit 

work and our ongoing work to assess the IRS’ progress on this 

issue. 

The IRS continues to make progress on both preventing fraudulent tax returns from entering the tax processing system and on detecting fraudulent tax returns during processing. The IRS reported 

that in processing year 2014, and that’s when they consider the tax 

returns from 2013, it detected and prevented over $24 billion in 

identity theft refund fraud. 

The IRS continues to expand the number of filters used to detect 

identity theft refund fraud at the time tax returns are processed. 

For example, the IRS increased the number of filters from 80 filters 

during processing year 2013 to 114 filters during processing year 

2014. As of September 30th, 2014, these filters were used to detect 

over 830,000 tax returns and prevented the issuance of over $5 billion in fraudulent tax refunds. 

TIGTA has previously identified large volumes of undetected potentially fraudulent tax returns with tax refunds issued to the 

same addresses or deposited into the same bank accounts. In response, the IRS developed and implemented a clustering filter. 

Using this tool, the IRS reported that as of early October 2014, it 

had identified approximately 517,000 tax returns and prevented 

the issuance of over $3 billion in fraudulent tax refunds. 

In addition, beginning with the 2015 filing season, the IRS implemented restrictions to limit the number of deposits to a single 

bank account. TIGTA is currently evaluating whether this is working as intended. 

Notwithstanding improvements in its detection efforts, access to 

third-party information, both income and withholding, is the key to 

enabling the IRS to prevent the continued issuance of billions of 

dollars in fraudulent tax refunds. Most of the third-party income 

and withholding information is not received by the IRS until well 

after tax return filing season begins. So, for example, the annual 

deadline for filing most information returns—we’re talking about 

the W–2s and the 1099s—with the IRS is March 31st. Yet taxpayers can begin filing their tax returns as early as mid-January 

each year. For the 2014 filing season, the IRS had received over 90 
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million tax returns as of March 28th, 2014. Legislation would be 

needed to accelerate the filing of the information returns. 

One practice that is designed to protect taxpayers from being victimized again the following year is the issuance of identity protection personal identification numbers. However, TIGTA reported in 

September 2014 that over 530,000 eligible taxpayers were not provided these numbers as required. Additionally, we have previously 

reported that identity theft victims experienced long delays in resolving their tax accounts. We found that in Fiscal Year 2013, the 

IRS took an average of 278 days to resolve the tax accounts. Our 

review also identified that the IRS made errors on the tax accounts 

of victims of identity theft, resulting in delayed refunds and requiring the IRS to reopen cases and take additional actions to resolve 

the errors. 

Recently, the IRS announced that unauthorized users were successful in obtaining access to over 350,000 taxpayer accounts using 

its Get Transcript application. The IRS believes that some of this 

information may have been gathered to file fraudulent returns during the upcoming 2016 filing season. TIGTA continues to investigate this incident, coordinating with other Federal law enforcement agencies. TIGTA has an audit ongoing to evaluate the IRS’ 

assistance provided to victims of the Get Transcript data breach. 

We at TIGTA, Senator, remain concerned about the ever-increasing attempts to defraud taxpayers through identity theft and other 

scams. Because of the importance of these issues, we plan to provide continuing audit coverage of the IRS’ efforts to prevent tax 

identity theft and will continue to investigate any instances of attempts to corrupt or otherwise interfere with the nation’s system 

of tax administration. 

Senator Ayotte, thank you for the opportunity to provide an update on our work on this critical tax administration issue and to 

share my views. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. George follows:] 
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Senator AYOTTE. Thank you. 

Mr. Christopher Lee, Senior Adviser Attorney for the National 

Taxpayer Advocate Service. 

Thank you, Mr. Lee. 

STATEMENT OF CHRISTOPHER LEE, SENIOR ATTORNEY 

ADVISER, NATIONAL TAXPAYER ADVOCATE SERVICE 

Mr. LEE. Senator Ayotte, thank you for inviting me to speak 

today about tax identity theft. When I joined the Taxpayer Advocate Service in 2004, one of my first assignments was to look into 

how the IRS was dealing with the small but growing problem of 

identity theft. Since then, the National Taxpayer Advocate has included identity theft as the most serious problem in nearly every 

annual report she has delivered to Congress. 

Today, identity theft cases account for approximately one-quarter 

of all TAS case receipts. These cases are usually very complex, 

often involving many years and involving multiple issues. In TAS, 

we assign a single case advocate to work with the taxpayer from 

day one until all related issues have been resolved. The taxpayer 

has the case advocate’s direct phone number and deals solely with 

this case advocate throughout, no matter how many IRS employees 

are involved in the back end. 

I am pleased to report that TAS resolves identity theft cases in 

about 66 days. To get an accurate sense of how long it takes the 

IRS to work an identity theft case, TAS reviewed a representative 

sample of approximately 400 identity theft cases closed by the IRS 

during the month of June 2014. We found that the average cycle 

time was 179 days, or about six months. We reported this and 

other key findings in Volume II of the National Taxpayer Advocate’s 2014 Annual Report to Congress that we released in December. 

Apart from the time and aggravation in having to prove one’s 

own identity again and again, the most significant impact to a victim of tax-related identity theft is the delay in receiving his or her 

refund. With the average refund amount being approximately 

$2,700, getting access to their tax refund is a big deal, particularly 

for low-income taxpayers, which is why we have been pushing the 

IRS to resolve these cases promptly. 

Some victims also experience consequences when other Federal 

agencies or private businesses rely on IRS data. For example, the 

IRS generally will not release account transcripts while an identity 

theft case is pending, so students applying for financial aid and 

homeowners applying for a mortgage may face additional obstacles. 

Despite a memo from the IRS Office of Chief Counsel concluding 

that the IRS may share with the victim a copy of a return filed by 

an identity thief, the IRS continues to deny such requests. Commissioner Koskinen recently committed that the IRS would allow identity theft victims to obtain redacted copies of tax returns filed 

under their SSN. We support this decision and look forward to the 

adoption of the new procedures, and we thank you for your involvement in this decision. 

In many instances, the IRS is the first to learn of the identity 

theft. In 2011, we recommended that when the IRS discovers that 
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a taxpayer’s SSN is used without authorization to file a tax return, 

it immediately notify the SSN owner. 

Last summer the IRS conducted a pilot program and notified approximately 25,000 taxpayers that their SSN had been misused for 

tax purposes. The IRS is currently evaluating recommendations 

from the pilot, and we urge the IRS to adopt the recommendation 

that it systemically issue letters to taxpayers informing them that 

someone has attempted to file a tax return using their SSN. 

Thus far, I have focused on the victim assistance aspects of identity theft. Now I will share some thoughts on what the IRS is doing 

to prevent identity theft from occurring in the first place. 

The IRS uses targeted filters to suspend the processing of tax returns that it suspects were filed by identity thieves. While we support the use of data-driven models to detect suspicious tax returns, 

the IRS has an obligation to sufficiently test these filters prior to 

rolling them out. This filing season approximately one out of three 

returns suspended by one such program, the Taxpayer Protection 

Program, were false positives, meaning that hundreds of thousands 

of taxpayers who had filed legitimate returns had to spend time 

contacting the IRS to verify their identity. This resulted in a severe 

backlog of calls to the Taxpayer Protection Program phone line, 

and in some weeks only 1 in 10 callers got through to an assister. 

We cannot afford to have a repeat of this filing season when far 

too many legitimate filers were inconvenienced and then were unable to reach an assister when they called the number instructed. 

All this does not paint a pretty picture, but there is some good 

news. The IRS has recently reorganized its identity theft victim assistance units, moving toward a more centralized approach for 

which our office has long advocated. TAS will be involved in the reengineering of identity theft victim assistance procedures this fall, 

and we will reiterate our recommendation that when a case involves multiple issues, one IRS employee should oversee the case 

to make sure the problems are handled in a coordinated manner. 

I appreciate the opportunity to testify today and would be happy 

to answer your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Lee follows:] 
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Senator AYOTTE. Thank you, Mr. Lee. 

Commissioner Koskinen, first of all—you heard Ms. Weeks’ testimony, and I wrote to you, really at her urging, to ensure that taxpayers could get a copy of their fraudulent return. You have agreed 

now to do that. I have to tell you, since you agreed to do that, people across the country have been contacting my office on this issue. 

So when will this happen’ Because I know not only Ms. Weeks, but 

many taxpayers, they want to know how their information was 

misused so that they can take steps to protect themselves, and obviously I think all of us, if we were a victim, would want to know 

the full extent of how such personal information is being abused. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. And as you know, we support that need. We 

think taxpayers do need to be able to have access to that information, if for nothing else, as Ms. Weeks noted, just to close the circle 

and to understand what’s been involved. 

Senator AYOTTE. I think it can also help you understand what 

you need to do to protect yourself, too. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Yes. For instance, with Get Transcript, we immediately, as soon as we found there was an issue, notified taxpayers. 

I do think that taxpayers need to get notice. I think they need to 

have access to the information. 

Since you and I talked it has turned out that, like everything, 

it’s more complicated to get the system to work than I had hoped. 

Part of it is because we have an obligation under Section 6103 to 

protect taxpayer information. So the complication is—and we’re 

talking about, as you know, hundreds of thousands of identity theft 

cases a year—that when a return is filed, there may be more than 

one taxpayer’s Social Security number involved. For instance, in 

Ms. Weeks’ case, where a child is taken as a dependent, what’s 

happening at the top of that fraudulent return is that there are 

other stolen identities. So that information can’t be provided because those are real people. It’s just that somebody has stolen that 

information and impersonated them. So we can’t provide that information to any of the other taxpayers on the return. 

Similarly, attachments, whether they’re W–2’s or other forms, oftentimes have stolen information from other taxpayers. We are not 

allowed to share, for instance with Ms. Weeks, the other taxpayer 

who has had their information stolen. 

To do it manually, if you think about it, you’d say, well, I could 

redact that information pretty quickly. But what we need is a system that will do that automatically so that we can regularly provide this information. 

I had hoped we’d get that up sooner. I am told that in a few 

weeks we will be able to, as a regular matter for any taxpayer, be 

able to provide that. 

If your identity is stolen and it is the identity used for filing the 

return, then that information is all available to the taxpayer. 

Senator AYOTTE. They can get everything if they’re using their 

identity. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. If you’re using your identity. In cases like Ms. 

Weeks’, where it’s simply a stolen identity to add to a deduction 

but it’s not the return, that’s where it gets more complicated as to 

how much information is there. In Ms. Weeks’ case, for instance, 

the only use of the identity, and that’s generally the case for a 
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child, is just to use the child’s Social Security number. There is no 

other information about the child on that return. She’s been a good 

catalyst for all of us to try to get this problem solved. In her case, 

when she gets the copy of the return, the information will all be 

redacted because the data belongs to the other taxpayer-victims—— 

Senator AYOTTE. So what kind of investigation is being done to 

ensure that the taxpayer information at the top isn’t just another 

innocent taxpayer who has been stolen but someone who may be 

involved in some way in the perpetration’ Is there a follow-through 

done’ 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Yes. 

Senator AYOTTE. Because I think, at the end of the day, we’re all 

appalled at what’s happened to the Weeks family, and we want to 

make sure we get those who have committed this horrific crime 

and hold them accountable. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Yes. The challenge for the entire economy in a 

digital age is the tremendous amount of personal data that’s available to criminals. The estimate is over 100 million Americans have 

data out in the hands of criminals. The Dark Net, as it’s called, the 

underside of the Web, has an estimated five times as much information as the entire Public Web. There are criminal syndicates in 

Russia, for instance, reputed to have 1 billion user identity’s and 

passwords. 

So what’s happening with children, children’s identity’s and Social Security numbers are used in schools, they’re used in hospitals, 

they’re used with regard to health care. On certificates, when children or adults die, that information is available. Congress supported us and we shut down the availability of the Death Master 

File, because what criminals want is to file a return where there 

isn’t going to be a competing return. They increase their chances 

of getting through. So that’s why they like people who are deceased, poor people who are not likely to file, elderly people who 

are not likely to file. 

In any event, the bottom line is taxpayers deserve to have as 

much information about that false return as we can provide them. 

As I say, within the next few weeks I am advised, because I’ve 

asked this question again, that we will have a system that will 

allow people automatically to get that information. 

Senator AYOTTE. So, Commissioner, in the next few weeks, what 

can I expect as a deadline? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Well, I asked that question, and we have a lot 

going on. Our people have said that they would like to certainly before October is over. In other words, in the next six to eight weeks 

we should have that system. It’s already being built. We’ve got the 

legal authority for it. We hope to then regularly be able to provide 

that information before we get very far into the fall. I could not pin 

them down any further because we’re also doing all of the IT work 

to get ready for the next filing season. 

Senator AYOTTE. All right. I need you to pin them down. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. All right, I will. 

Senator AYOTTE. Because this is important. 
117 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I will start by saying that if it’s not ready by the 

end of October, I will want to know. If we can get it earlier than 

that, we will do that. 

Senator AYOTTE. Well, we’ll be following up. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. And that would be fine. 

Senator AYOTTE. Because this is incredibly important, not just to 

Ms. Weeks, but I know many of the taxpayers that are here today 

who want more information about how their personal information 

has been misused. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Right. 

Senator AYOTTE. So this is one where I hope you’ll make it a top 

priority to get this done. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Right. And one of the things we are concerned 

about is that this is information that the criminals have gotten 

from somewhere else. So when they get enough information to file 

a false return, or to access a Get Transcript account, our major concern for taxpayers is to understand that data is out there and they 

need to know what’s on the tax return, but more importantly, they 

need to then take steps to protect their information. 

Senator AYOTTE. Absolutely. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. It goes to changing your identity, changing your 

passwords, not using the same—— 

Senator AYOTTE. It’s a huge process and a big rigmarole. When 

you become the victim of identity theft, all your credit information, 

everything is impacted. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Yes. And so whatever we can do to be helpful, we 

are going to try to do. It’s a traumatic event for taxpayers. 

Senator AYOTTE. It is. I’m going to hold you to that. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. That’s fine. I’m happy to be held to that. 

Senator AYOTTE. I appreciate it. 

So, I wanted to follow up, with Mr. Lee, and Inspector George. 

I know the Commissioner says we’re going to assign one point of 

contact now, and that sounds new to me on this, because we heard 

the story from Ms. Weeks, we heard the story from Mr. Walker as 

well, about the jumping around and the rigmarole that people are 

going through when they’re trying to correct the record—in Mr. 

Walker’s case, when his clients actually tried to return money to 

the Treasury. 

So when will this get in place? 

The other question I have is I know you said 120 days, but just 

listening to everyone here I heard 120 days, and then I heard 278 

days, and then I heard 179 days. I bet you if I went out into that 

audience and asked folks out there that were victims of identity 

theft, they’d be talking about hundreds and hundreds of days, unfortunately. 

So can you clarify that for us and how we’re going to get more 

responsive here and make it easier for people? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Yes. Let me just clarify one thing. As noted, we 

have consolidated what used to be in four different departments of 

the IRS to try to get a single point of operations and contact. The 

issue that the Taxpayer Advocate, Nina Olson, and I continue to 

discuss is, whether within that now centralized unit—which we 

think will be much more efficient and allow us to move faster— 
118 

whether you should have an individual person answering the 

phone. 

The Taxpayer Advocate, as Mr. Lee pointed out, suggests that if 

there are complications, there ought to be one person. Our sense 

is if we can build the right system—for instance, when you call an 

airline and talk to someone, when you call back you don’t get the 

same person, but they have a system that allows them to know exactly what you said the last time you called. We are not quite there 

yet, but our hope is, with a little bit of funding, that we can actually build a record so that when you call the next time your previous discussion is already readily available. Because otherwise, 

that’s when people think a single person is good. 

The problem with a single person, the reason airlines and Amazon don’t do that, is that when you call back, they may be on vacation, they could be at lunch, they could be on another phone line. 

But I take the point, that there’s nothing more frustrating, and 

nothing has been more frustrating, than being moved from one part 

of the agency to another. 

Senator AYOTTE. Right. It’s like you told your story once, and 

then you get someone new and they don’t know anything about it. 

I wanted to allow Mr. George and Mr. Lee to comment on that 

as well. 

Mr. GEORGE. As it relates to the timing, Senator, the IRS issued 

guidance in Fiscal Year 2013 to inform taxpayers, for their employees, IRS employees to inform taxpayers that these matters would 

be resolved in 180 days. 

Senator AYOTTE. Okay. 

Mr. GEORGE. What we uncovered is that during that timeframe, 

Fiscal Year 2013—oh, and what they also did, the IRS informed 

the oversight board, the IRS oversight board that they were resolving these matters in 120 days. So that’s where—— 

Senator AYOTTE. So in other words, if I’m a victim of identity 

theft, the IRS is saying 180 days. 

Mr. GEORGE. That was the guidance that they issued. 

Senator AYOTTE. That was the last guidance on the issue. 

Mr. GEORGE. Unless there was subsequent guidance, and that 

one I can’t say for the record. 

Senator AYOTTE. So what is really happening? 

Mr. GEORGE. Well, what is happening is the information that 

was reported out, the IRS eliminated an entire subset of cases 

closed during Fiscal Year 2013. The information that they relayed 

was cases that were open and closed in Fiscal Year 2013, as opposed to the previous cases that had come to their attention in Fiscal Year 2012 and prior that were also closed. So that eliminated 

almost two-thirds of the cases that were outstanding that they reported out on. So that’s why there’s a difference of opinion as to 

the number of cases. 

Senator AYOTTE. What are you hearing, Mr. Lee, in terms of—— 

Mr. GEORGE. Or the number of days, rather. 

Senator AYOTTE. I’m sorry. Mr. Lee, and then go ahead if you 

have more to offer, Mr. George. 

Mr. LEE. Yes, I think there are a couple of things going on. Number one, the IRS is continually improving their processes. So I 

think TIGTA has looked at the cycle time of identity theft cases in 
119 

each of the past three years, and the first year, I guess Fiscal Year 

2008, before they came out in 2013 they came out with an estimate 

of 414 days, and then the following year they came out with reports 

saying the average cycle time was 212 days, and then earlier this 

year the cycle time was reported as 278 days. So clearly, the IRS 

is improving its processes. 

Especially in 2013 the IRS has new processes, and I believe even 

in TIGTA’s report where they estimate 278 days, they used a figure 

of 174 days with the new procedures. So I think six months is the 

most accurate estimate. We conducted a thorough review last summer where we looked at 400 cases selected at random of all IRS 

cases closed in June 2014, and we came out with 180 days. 

We’ve heard reports from certain groups within the IRS saying 

they were going to close their cases in 120 days, which is great. 

But what we found is that the IRS often looks at cases on a module-by-module basis. So even if that particular function was able to 

close cases in 120 days—— 

Senator AYOTTE. It’s not fully closed. 

Mr. LEE.—it doesn’t mean that all the taxpayers’ issues were resolved in that 120 days. So I believe our estimate—— 

Senator AYOTTE. So let’s get to the bottom line here, would we 

all agree that the number of days is unacceptable that people are 

waiting right now? Because I’m hearing a number of six-month stories, if not longer. 

Yes or no? Mr. Lee? 

Mr. LEE. Yes, I feel that six months is not acceptable, but it’s obviously much better than 278 days. 

Senator AYOTTE. It’s all relative. But if you are a victim, that’s 

a long time, especially if your tax refund. We’ve got constituents, 

people who need these tax refunds to pay important bills to keep 

going. 

Mr. GEORGE. And I’m sure that the Commissioner will address 

this further, and there is no question that it’s unacceptable, but the 

IRS is restricted by resources, Senator. There’s no question about 

that. Additional resources would allow for more attention to this 

matter. During the tax filing season, individuals who would otherwise work on these types of cases and assist taxpayers have to now 

take on phone questions, responsibilities to respond to questions 

about filing tax information, and so they have to put aside their 

cases working on tax-related identity theft. 

But again, I’ll refer to the Commissioner. 

Senator AYOTTE. Commissioner. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Well, I don’t want every problem when I testify 

to be tied to the budget, but the Inspector General is correct. Ultimately, this is a question of manpower or person power in terms 

of addressing it. 

I think what you’ve heard, we’d all agree, is the process is much 

better than it was three or four years ago. As the Inspector General 

said, part of what happens in the measuring of time is the old 

cases took longer. If you add them into the newer cases, which take 

less time, the average is still higher. 

Our goal is to get it down to 120 days or less for cases when they 

start. We still have cases thattake longer. Even 120 days we aren’t 

satisfied with. But as the Inspector General said, we think the con-
120 

solidation of the four departments into one will allow us to move 

more quickly. But ultimately, in the middle of tax season when 

we’re processing 150 million returns, the fact that we have several 

thousand fewer people on the phones means that the system bogs 

down. 

Senator AYOTTE. Mr. Lee. 

Mr. LEE. Senator, I just want to mention that the Taxpayer Advocate Service is also faced with budget constraints. But if a taxpayer is facing economic burden, they are able to come to us and 

we’ve been able to get them the refund in a much shorter time, in 

about two months. So that is one option. We don’t want all of the 

IRS’ identity theft cases, but when the taxpayer has a hardship or 

economic burden, we are happy to take on their case. 

Senator AYOTTE. I appreciate it. And I just want to also make 

sure that we clarify. As I understand the resource issue, I know 

that the amount committed to taxpayer services was actually the 

same, because you and I have kind of gone around a little bit on 

this, from 2014 to 2015. But as I understand it, the agency chose 

to reallocate about $133 million in user fees from taxpayer services 

to operation support accounts, most of which has gone to implement the new health care law. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Correct. What’s important to understand is that 

we have user fees that historically have been used as a buffer to 

allow us to fund unfunded issues as they come up. This year the 

ABLE Act was passed in December. We don’t have a budget for 

that. The health coverage tax credit has been passed, and we don’t 

have a budget for that. Normally we’d apply user fees. 

Well, in the last three or four years, because the taxpayer services, account has never been fully funded, we used user fees to support it, and this last year we used $50 million to support it. But 

that was about $100 million less than we used the year before, and 

you’re right, we had to put that into supporting the establishment 

of the Affordable Care Act, both because it’s a statutory mandate 

and also, for taxpayers, we had to be able to run the filing season 

and process 5 or 6 million returns that, in fact, reconciled the advance premium tax credits received. 

So we have enforcement, we have taxpayer service, we have IT 

operations and maintenance, and as the budget has been cut for 

five years, we had to balance where we put these funds. 

Senator AYOTTE. I just want to make sure we’re clear, though, 

in terms of what was allocated between 2014 and 2015 for taxpayer 

services. That number has remained the same, but you had other 

responsibilities added. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. That number as an appropriation remained the 

same, but because of the fact that the appropriation overall was 

cut, it meant that the $100 million that would have gone into taxpayer services—— 

Senator AYOTTE. Right. But when Congress put the money for 

the services, that’s where they put the same amount of money, 

right? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Right, and when I testified to the appropriators, 

I said if we were held flat our taxpayer service was going to be at 

the 50 to 60 percent level. When it turned out that we weren’t held 

flat, that in fact our budget was cut by $350 million, we had no 
121 

choice but to take $100 million to fund the statutory mandate 

passed by Congress. 

Senator AYOTTE. To deal with the new law, the Affordable Care 

Act. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. To deal with the new law, yes. This year we are 

having to take money out of enforcement and taxpayer services, to 

fund other statutory unfunded mandates. The ABLE Act is a perfectly good act. The Health Coverage Tax Credit is a perfectly good 

act. We have no money provided by Congress to fund the implementation of those programs. We have to do it. The only place it 

comes from is either enforcement, taxpayer services, or our ongoing 

IT work. 

Senator AYOTTE. So let me ask the Inspector General, you’ve 

made a number of recommendations that you believe the IRS could 

implement to save money. What thoughts do you have on that? 

Mr. GEORGE. What I’d like permission to do, Senator, is to provide you in writing a thorough listing, but I’ll just give you what 

I think would be the most helpful way for the IRS to do its mission 

and for the U.S. Treasury to benefit. 

Senator AYOTTE. Sure. 

Mr. GEORGE. When the information reported to the IRS on income is provided by a third party, we have uncovered during the 

course of all the audit work that we’ve done and from outside 

sources that the compliance rate among taxpayers who fall into 

that category—and again, the category is somebody else is reporting that the taxpayer earned $100 that year or that pay period, 

that year—it’s almost 98 to 99 percent compliance rate. 

At the opposite end of that spectrum are people who operate 

businesses on a cash-only basis who self-report, the compliance rate 

is under 20 percent. 

So if there was a requirement for everyone to have some form of 

information sharing by an outside or independent party, that would 

tremendously empower the IRS and the American taxpayer overall. 

Another study, and this was done professionally. If you are asked 

′′Should you pay all the taxes you owe to the Federal Government’’ 

again you have a 90-plus rate, ’Yes, I should.’ If the question is 

changed, Senator, slightly to say, ’What if your neighbor down the 

block, Ms. Jones, isn’t paying everything that she owes’’ then the 

compliance rate goes down dramatically, because if she isn’t paying 

everything, then why should I pay everything? 

So the bottom line, again, is third-party reporting. Then there’s 

access to the new-hire database which is held in the Department 

of Health and Human Services, so that too could provide the IRS 

with tools to determine whether the information they’re receiving 

is accurate, whether the person actually did earn what he or she 

said in the tax return that they filed. And then, of course, working 

on a lot of the refundable credits and the like, making sure people 

who—— 

Senator AYOTTE. Additional child tax credit, earned income tax 

credit. Yes, we’ve talked about the fraud and issues that need to 

be resolved. They could be better addressed there. I know you’ve 

issued reports about that. 

Mr. GEORGE. Yes. 
122 

Senator AYOTTE. And I also have legislation to address some of 

that. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I would just add one thing, because we have an 

obligation to be as efficient as we can. We have an obligation to our 

employees. We have a great workforce who are committed to providing taxpayers the best service we can. People most frustrated by 

the level of taxpayer service are our taxpayer service employees, 

the people in the call centers who know the level of service they 

want to provide, they know the level of service taxpayers expect, 

and they are frustrated because we can’t deliver. We just don’t 

have the resources. 

In the little over 20 months since I started as Commissioner, the 

GAO, the Inspector General, the Taxpayer Advocate, and the oversight board all independently have stated to Congress that the IRS 

is under-funded and that, in fact, if we continue to have budget 

cuts, the level of services, the level of enforcement, the level of security will do nothing but go down. 

Senator AYOTTE. Well, I would certainly like a commitment as 

well. I know there have been a number of issues raised, including 

the issue of when in 2014 IRS employees received bonuses in which 

they were rewarded after a report done by TIGTA revealed that the 

IRS had awarded $2.8 million in bonuses to more than 2,800 employees that had broken agency rules of conduct, including over 

1,000 employees who owed back taxes themselves. So if we’re going 

to allocate additional resources, we need better management also, 

and I have a list of issues like that that I know have been brought 

up in GAO and TIGTA reports, Commissioner. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. If you would like to send me that list. In that 

case, for instance, we have changed that rule. No longer does an 

employee—they’re not bonuses, they’re performance awards—even 

if a performance award is earned, no longer will it be paid to an 

employee who has violated an obligation, a serious obligation of the 

IRS, or is not compliant on their taxes. We’ve advised the union 

about that, and they have agreed. 

Senator AYOTTE. Well, I appreciate that. I’ll send you a list. I 

have a list. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I’ll be happy to have the list. 

Senator AYOTTE. I have a list. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Because I agree with you. Taxpayers need to 

know and be comfortable that they’re going to get treated fairly no 

matter who they are and no matter what political party they belong to. We’re spending taxpayer dollars, and taxpayers need to be 

comfortable that we are careful about it, that we’re frugal, that 

we’re as efficient as we can be. I think that’s an obligation we have. 

Senator AYOTTE. And recognize the immense power that the IRS 

has, and it’s important in the sense that people, when they’re interacting with the IRS, you have a tremendous amount of power, and 

it can be very intimidating. 

I wanted to follow up, on some of the issues that Mr. Walker 

raised as well. He raised an issue of the fact that things have 

changed in terms of how the professional community is able to get 

basic information using electronic databases on behalf of their clients. He described, I think, quite a run-around of trying to best 

represent his clients in a way when they’ve been victims of identity 
123 

theft, but also the story that he told about the check, when they 

were trying to correct the record and the run-around that has been 

given for this poor couple. 

So what’s happened that the professional community isn’t able to 

be part of the solution here and partner to help represent their clients as best they can to prevent identity theft, number one; and 

then hopefully if they become victims, to correct it? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I was concerned about those vignettes because 

our most important partners in tax filing season are, in fact, CPAs, 

enrolled agents, tax attorneys, and preparers generally. But certainly enrolled agents and CPAs, we have partnerships with them, 

with the National Enrolled Agents Association. We have standing 

panels. We have advisory committees composed of preparers. I 

know the practitioner priority line, which is a line specially set 

aside for practitioners. Again, because of the cuts in personnel, as 

I said during the last year, it’s an oxymoron. It’s no longer a priority. You have to stay on the phone if you’re a practitioner almost 

as long as taxpayers, and that’s unacceptable because, as noted, 

the professionals on that line are in a position to solve problems 

and solve them quickly. 

This is the first I’ve heard that they have been declined access 

or can’t get access electronically. We are concerned with electronic 

security, and we’re dealing with very sophisticated, well-funded, organized criminals. A target of opportunity for them, besides retail 

operations, are tax preparers. They are increasingly trying to, in 

fact, steal the identity of tax preparers. 

So one of the issues we have is security, but this is the first time 

I’ve heard that they’re having trouble getting in, because they 

shouldn’t. We should be able to provide them easy access. 

Senator AYOTTE. Well, absolutely, because they are part of the 

solution. 

Maybe, Mr. Lee, you’ve run into this in some of the work that 

you’ve done as well? 

Mr. LEE. I actually haven’t been that involved in the practitioner 

aspect of it, so I don’t think I can comment. But I agree with the 

Commissioner that the practitioners need to be included since they 

are—— 

Senator AYOTTE. I hope from this hearing we can have some follow-up to what Mr. Walker is dealing with, to help professionals 

help their clients to solve these problems. Obviously, if someone 

doesn’t have the benefit of having professional help, we’ve just got 

to get this right for a person on their own to be able to resolve it 

more easily. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. As I’ve said—and you’re exactly right, we have 

the possibility or the likelihood that we are intimidating to taxpayers. As our surveys have shown, if you ask taxpayers how 

they’d like to deal with this, the highest priority is not to have to 

deal with us at all. 

Senator AYOTTE. Not to have to deal with it. Who wants to deal 

with the IRS, right? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Right, we understand that. 

Senator AYOTTE. Here you have people trying to correct the 

record with the IRS and—— 
124 

Mr. KOSKINEN. So one of the things we’re trying to get people to 

understand and what I was surprised to learn when I became the 

Commissioner is the amount of time and effort we spend actually 

trying to help taxpayers. We have thousands of people on the 

phone, and their only job is to help taxpayers. 

So I have said, and I mean it honestly, if you have an issue with 

the IRS, you’re trying to correct an issue, you’re just trying to figure out how to make a payment or you have problems, you’ve lost 

a job, you have other challenges, you want to create an installment 

payment, we want to work with you. You don’t have to call somebody off late-night TV to send them your account. If you’re trying 

to become compliant, if you’re trying to work it through, we want 

to work with you. 

If you’re trying to avoid taxes, if you’re trying to cheat, then 

we’re happy to be unhappy about that, and those are the people 

who should be intimidated. 

But we’re trying to make sure taxpayers understand we really 

take seriously, as you noted in your opening statement, our commitment and our mission to provide effective and appropriate taxpayer service. So wherever we can improve, we’re going to try to 

do it. As I say, with Mr. Walker, I’m going to find out. As you 

noted, we have working panels all around the country where we 

have IRS executives and enrolled agents working regularly to deal 

with problems. 

Senator AYOTTE. I think you’d better include him on this because 

he’s got some good—— 

Mr. KOSKINEN. He’s already on some of them, as he noted. But 

we will find out, because I do think nobody is more important to 

us than professional preparers. As he said, they’re solution providers. They can get the information. They can work with us to 

help expedite solutions. But even if you don’t have a preparer, we 

are very anxious to help make it as smooth a process as possible. 

Senator AYOTTE. Mr. George. 

Mr. GEORGE. Thank you, Senator. Related to what the Commissioner just said, the paid preparers are the vanguard because of 

the amount of work and the systems they provide the IRS and to 

the taxpayer. But you have to be honest when you think about the 

complexity of the tax code. One of the tax credits that is most 

abused throughout the tax code is the earned income tax credit. 

The instructions for completing that are 30 to 40 pages long, and 

the average person who takes advantage of that normally does not 

have the wherewithal to complete that him or herself. 

But keep in mind, we’ve estimated, as has the IRS, upwards of 

$20 billion a year is sent out incorrectly under that program. Now, 

a lot of the people who do benefit from that are getting some assistance preparing their taxes. I’m not going to point to, and we’re not 

in a position to point to any particular source, but you need tax 

preparers, whether they’re paid or whether they’re volunteer, to 

not be complicit or to follow the rules that are required now to confirm that, yes, this person does that have dependent and is eligible 

to apply and receive this refundable credit, which means they don’t 

need to owe taxes in order to get the money from the Treasury 

through the IRS. 
125 

So complexity is important, or diminishing the complexity of 

completing your taxes. 

Senator AYOTTE. Absolutely. And then, of course, for the additional child tax credit, you don’t have to use the Social Security 

number for the child. We know you’ve issued reports on the billions 

of dollars that could be saved there, as well. 

Mr. GEORGE. We believe, although the IRS has a very different 

interpretation, that the ITIN, the Individual Taxpayer Identification Number, is sufficient for that credit. We don’t agree with that 

interpretation, but the IRS has a different point of view there. 

Senator AYOTTE. Well, I have legislation filed on that piece, and 

I think we’ll save billions of dollars if we take the step that TIGTA 

has recommended on that. 

I wanted to make sure that we don’t leave out two important 

issues. Number one, prevention. I know that we’ve heard that the 

Get Transcript issue, I believe you testified that the number was 

350,000 potential impacts to taxpayers of personal information 

from how that was infiltrated. How are we going to prevent that 

in the future? 

And then to Mr. Lee’s point, with the added filtering that the 

IRS is putting in. We want to make sure that we’re doing whatever 

we can to prevent identity theft. The one-in-three false positives for 

people who are being flagged and then put through a rigmarole, 

how are we going to address those pieces? So what more to ensure 

that something like Get Transcript doesn’t happen again? And then 

secondly, so we don’t have so many false positives? 

Mr. GEORGE. I think this is important. That 350,000 figure I 

think is misleading because that doesn’t include the dependents 

and others whose information is also contained—— 

Senator AYOTTE. So it’s misleading in a—it’s bigger. 

Mr. GEORGE. It’s a low-ball figure. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. I wouldn’t call it low. 

Senator AYOTTE. So those are just the filers versus everyone 

else’s information that may be impacted. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. And we notify everyone on there about the issues. 

The Get Transcript and the false positives, these are two related 

issues. We could make it impossible for a criminal to have access 

to Get Transcript, but at the same time we’d be making it impossible for a legitimate taxpayer to have access to Get Transcript. 

Even with the system in place, the criminal with all of that information still couldn’t get through, but 22 percent of the taxpayers 

trying to get hold of transcripts can’t get through because they 

can’t answer their own questions. 

So as we get better filters, we’re going to have higher false 

positives. But the other side of the one-third false positive it means 

that two-thirds of those refunds stopped were fraudulent. Had we 

had lower false positives, we would have had fewer stops and more 

identity theft. When we stop it at the door, it’s a lot easier to resolve your account. 

Senator AYOTTE. Just so we’re clear, when we’re talking about 

filters, or we’re talking about how do we stop up-front, we’re talking about things like multi-step verification where I’m asked what’s 

my mother’s maiden name, all those issues. 
126 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Right. But when you file your return, we want to 

have a set of filters looking for anomalies to determine whether 

that’s really your return. This year we stopped 3.2 million returns 

that are suspicious. Probably a third of those are going to turn out 

to have been real taxpayers and their refund would have been delayed. The other two-thirds, a couple of million of them, will turned 

out to have been fraudulent. 

So the tradeoff, even on the security for Get Transcript, is how 

hard do you make it for a criminal to get through, at the same time 

you’re trying not to make it hard for a legitimate taxpayer to get 

through. 

Senator AYOTTE. So what do you think we can do more of in 

terms of taking steps to reduce the number of false positives—— 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Well, with Get Transcript, for instance, when it 

happened, my sense was this is a critical issue for us because going 

forward, as Mr. Walker said, our goal is to be able to have taxpayers have an account with us electronically, digitally, where they 

can, in fact, access their information. Their preparer can access 

their account. They can make corrections directly on their return. 

They don’t have to file a paper return. But to do that, the authentication—that the right taxpayer is accessing the account—is critical, obviously. 

So when we’re looking at Get Transcript, we’re not looking at it 

as how do we secure that application alone. We’re looking at it to 

your question, how do we secure information about taxpayers to 

know that they are the right taxpayer, how do we know that the 

preparer is the right preparer. So we’re spending a lot of time. I 

told a lot of people that I would rather put Get Transcript back up 

later, with more confidence that we’ve solved the problem, than 

rushing to get it up. 

One of the things we’re looking at, for instance, is that we have 

to make it go from wholesale to retail. That is, we’re going to make 

limitations that if you want to get a transcript, only one transcript 

will be given to an IP address or a computer, and probably only one 

a day. So if you want to go and come back and get it again, you 

can’t get it again in an hour. You can’t get another transcript. You 

have to come back the next day. It’s a little less convenient for preparers and taxpayers, but it’s a security level. 

We’re thinking about, and we’re investigating whether we could have you pay $2 for the transcript using your credit card, because 

the credit card verification would be another authentication. In a 

lot of cases in terms of verification, and one of the reasons we have 

this partnership for the first time with the private sector, is a lot 

of taxpayers have their identity verified on their own. A lot of taxpayers allow their preparers to take their W–2 information directly 

from the company. If a taxpayer can do that with their preparer, 

we and the preparer have a pretty good idea that that’s a legitimate taxpayer. If we can pool as many taxpayers as we can in the 

legitimate pool, we’ll then have a smaller number that we can take 

a harder look at, and that’s what we’re hoping to do with the state 

tax authorities as well as the private sector. 

But ultimately the bottom line is, as I say, we’re dealing with organized criminal syndicates around the world. We will never be 

able to guarantee you that nobody is ever going to get through. 
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We’ll never be able to stop. We’re going to always have to be agile 

and quick and always testing the system and trying to keep ahead 

of, if not up with, the criminals. 

Senator AYOTTE. So I want to make sure I get any thoughts from 

Mr. George or Mr. Lee on this. But can I just add my two cents 

to this idea of giving $2 for a transcript on your credit card? With 

everything happening and the number of breaches that have happened in the Federal Government with OPM and everything else, 

I think people are going to be quite hesitant to want to give their 

credit card. So I hope we’ll look at other ways that we can address 

this. That’s just my two cents in hearing it. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. But that’s a good two cents. We wouldn’t keep the 

numbers, and it’s a great way to verify who you are. 

Senator AYOTTE. I think at the moment there are a lot of issues 

even on the other front, not only what’s happened with the Get 

Transcript but thinking about the OPM and the massive amount 

of information that we’re dealing with on the theft there. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. One thing we should remember, there’s a big difference between what happened at OPM or Target or JPMorgan 

Chase and Get Transcript. Get Transcript is identity theft. Criminals had the information. OPM, Target, and the rest, Anthem, are 

all cyber breaches. 

We’re under attack, give or take a little, a million times a week. 

Our system is under attack, over 50 million attacks a year on cyber 

security. So it’s a critical issue. It’s just a different issue than what 

we’re dealing with in identity theft. 

Senator AYOTTE. I didn’t know if either of you had a comment 

on the prevention piece and where we should be. 

Mr. LEE. I just had a comment on the $2 charge. I mean, I’m 

very comfortable using online services, and I’d be fine with that $2 

charge. But I believe, as the Senator mentioned, a lot of Americans 

would just be distrusting of the IRS in order to—— 

Senator AYOTTE. We’re giving you a lot of information to start 

with, right? And a lot of dollars. 

Mr. LEE. A lot of taxpayers don’t have credit cards. 

Senator AYOTTE. That’s a good point. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. We’ve thought about that, the ones who are 

unbanked or don’t have credit cards, and we would be able to provide them a transcript. You go online and we mail it to you. But 

most people, when they’re trying to get a mortgage or trying to get 

student loans, wait until the last minute, and then they need it immediately. But the point is well taken. As I say, financial institutions can decide some of their customers don’t produce enough 

money and they can leave them aside. We don’t have that luxury. 

Senator AYOTTE. We can’t leave anyone aside. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. We have 150 million taxpayers. Even if only 3 or 

4 percent of them don’t like the Internet, don’t have access to it, 

never want to use it—my mother-in-law is that way—3 to 4 percent 

is 6 million people, and we need to be able to provide them appropriate levels of service no matter what else we do. So as we go forward in a digital economy, we’re not going to leave those people behind. 
128 

Senator AYOTTE. So I want to make sure—I think prevention, 

anything we can do to, obviously, improve technology, and we’re 

headed at least in a direction—— 

Mr. LEE. I’ve got some thoughts on prevention, and this is probably outside the scope of what my boss would be comfortable for 

me to testify about. 

Senator AYOTTE. That’s why—he’s not here, right? 

Mr. LEE. Okay. I’d like to just make a comment. We talked about 

moving up the deadline for information reporting so the IRS can 

verify that information. But I think we also need to talk about 

moving back the filing season and the issuance of refunds. So instead of taxpayers expecting to get refunds in January or February, 

I think we need to talk about having them wait until the summer 

so the IRS has a chance to look at the information that it collects 

in March. 

Senator AYOTTE. This one won’t be popular. 

Mr. LEE. It won’t be popular, but I think that’s something we 

need to have a conversation about, but I don’t want to bring it to 

the table. You can foot that idea. 

Senator AYOTTE. I think the challenge there is that when it’s 

thousands of dollars for some families, that six months could be 

something that they’ve planned, it could be something that’s really 

important to them. 

I had a constituent who their family went through difficulties, 

they were the victims of identity theft, and like your office does, 

trying to work with them to get their refund sooner because they 

thought they were going to lose their mortgage because they just 

happened to go through a bump on some other things that were 

happening and that was so critical, and if they had to wait. I think 

that’s one of the challenges that identity theft victims are dealing 

with because for some people, depending on what’s happening in 

their lives, it’s a lot of money and makes a big difference. 

Mr. LEE. Right, it’s a big percentage of their annual income 

that—— 

Senator AYOTTE. That’s being held. It’s their money. Exactly. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. So again, the tradeoff is that you’re trying to protect everyone, because if we could have no one be a victim of identity theft, that would obviously be terrific. So it’s, again, a tradeoff. 

There may be some inconvenience along the way to, in fact, try to 

increase the protection. So before Mr. Lee gets dismissed for his 

idea, people will build their lives around when they get their refund. If in one year everybody moved from January/February to, 

say, March or April, not June, then they’d count on their refunds 

in March or April, and we’ve begun to look at it and say what 

would that do? Would that make a significant difference in our 

ability to protect everybody? 

There is no idea that is not under consideration, and that’s why 

these partnerships are wonderful, because we’re open to ideas from 

other people as well, because there isn’t a single silver bullet. The 

partnership, we hope, with preparers and state tax agencies will 

give us coordinated layers that criminals have to work through. 

But it will take everybody’s best thoughts for us to continue to 

make progress. 
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Senator AYOTTE. And I really appreciate all the patience and 

these questions. I want to make sure I follow up on all the issues 

that have been raised. One of them was this issue that those who 

have been victims of identity theft, many of them can get the IP 

PIN number to make sure when they re-file that they don’t become 

re-victimized. I heard that there was a big gap, I believe 530,000 

taxpayers not provided these IP PINs that may be eligible for it 

that may need them. So how is this program working? Why aren’t 

some taxpayers being given access to it? 

One couple asked me on the way in here today if they’ve been 

a victim of identity theft and they file the next year with the IP 

PIN program, is this something they’re going to be continuing and 

able to do? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Yes. 

Senator AYOTTE. So it’s not one year but they have that protection if they want to have it going forward. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Yes. A lot of good questions in there. The IG has 

been very helpful to us over the years in reviewing and giving us 

suggestions, and we’ve adopted most of those, implemented most of 

their suggestions in this entire area. 

On the issue of IP PINs, the issue really was not so much people 

who had actually been victims but people whose records had been 

flagged. 

Senator AYOTTE. So it would be victims or potential victims. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. People where there was suspicious activity in 

their account. There were 1,700,000 of those. So this year for the 

first time, we took that recommendation and sent out 1.5 million 

IP PINs to known victims. We offered another 1.7 million Americans IP PINs where their accounts had been flagged. They hadn’t 

necessarily been victims but it was clear there was an issue. 

Similarly with Get Transcript, we offered everyone where there 

was any access to their transcript an IP PIN. Now, your point 

about it, we’re considering right now that once you have an IP PIN, 

it’s yours and you should actually use it every year, and each year 

we send you a new one. We’re now looking at, well, could we give 

them to you for three years so every year you don’t have to worry 

about if I move, does my IP PIN follow. But if you’ve signed up for 

it, or you have to use the IP PIN, and it goes for a while. 

The other thing we’re looking at is after a number of years, and 

we know because we track, that even after we’ve stopped a return, 

the next year the fraudsters come back in a reasonable percentage 

of cases. So the IP PIN protection is very important. 

Senator AYOTTE. Right, because once you’ve been victimized 

once—I have to say, my uncle was a victim of tax-related fraud too, 

and he wasn’t just victimized once. It was twice. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Yes, because what happens is—and especially 

when we’ve stopped them, you’d think, well, why would they file 

again? But it’s not as if there’s a single person out there. This data 

is out there and available to people, and it’s being sold. 

Senator AYOTTE. Yes, it’s a criminal network using your data because it’s out in this—— 

Mr. KOSKINEN. So it may be a new network that buys a whole 

pool of Social Security numbers from other crooks, and they don’t 

know—nobody is telling them this is a good Social Security num-
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ber. They’re just selling them—here’s a thousand. So the IP PIN— 

we encourage people to use it. 

We have a pilot program we’ve run for two years in Florida, 

Georgia, and the District of Columbia, which are the hotbeds of 

SIRF, offering everyone in those states the opportunity to—— 

Senator AYOTTE. I’m starting to feel New Hampshire is a hotbed, 

unfortunately. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. You ought to go to Florida. 

So we’re running pilots. The reason we’re running these pilots is 

to see what the uptake is, what the cost is, what the burden is, because it is a way, in effect, of changing your identifier from your 

Social Security number to a number that only you and we have. 

Senator AYOTTE. Right. And I know Mr. George wanted to jump 

in. 

Mr. GEORGE. Just to make this point about something perverse 

with all of this. And that is, again, if you don’t have a filing obligation, and if the bad guy does assume your identity, believe it or 

not, the IRS communicates with the bad guy using the address the 

bad guy provides. So the senior citizen or somebody who otherwise 

doesn’t have a filing obligation is just completely unaware that all 

of this is happening. And I don’t fault the IRS necessarily here, but 

they have a very difficult job, Senator. As the Commissioner pointed out, they have to keep up with these very smart, overseas many 

of them, bad guys who are constantly thinking of new ways to manipulate the system, and it’s a very difficult task. 

Senator AYOTTE. This issue of the pilot, you notified 25,000 taxpayers when you learned that their Social Security number may 

have been misused. Is this something that you plan to implement 

with everyone? That’s been a piece of our legislation, that if the 

IRS knows that your Social Security number may have been misused. Often I’m hearing from taxpayers that they’re finding it out 

when something happens to trigger it, whether they’re filing their 

tax return or some other action. Maybe it’s a credit issue or something. It’s pretty valuable information, I think, for people to know 

as soon as possible to protect themselves. 

So what’s your thought on that? 

Mr. KOSKINEN. As I say, this year, for anybody whose account 

has been flagged but is not necessarily a victim of identity theft, 

that 1.7 million we’ve written to and said that there’s an indication 

of fraud, you can get an IP PIN if you would like one. 

Similarly, the purpose of this pilot is to, in fact, see what the 

burden is, what the take-up rate is, because as a general matter 

the risk for a taxpayer is not—I mean, it’s a risk and an aggravation when you’re an identity theft fraud victim, but they’re not getting any more information from us about you. The risk is that they 

already have that information. So what we’re trying to figure out 

is how do we let you know that even if you’re not a victim of identity theft, you need to know that information is out there and being 

used by criminals. If you’re not a victim of identity fraud, and even 

if you are, it doesn’t affect your relationship. We’ll work it out. The 

risk is it’s being used also for other issues. 

Senator AYOTTE. Oh, it puts people at risk. So I would hope 

that—— 
131 

Mr. KOSKINEN. Our goal is to do whatever we can, and the pilot 

will do that, to try to help people, even though it won’t be in relation to us. But we just feel it’s important for them to know that 

we have an indication that your data is out there being used by 

criminals. 

Mr. LEE. My understanding is that this recommendation was 

raised at the executive steering committee level this summer, so 

we’re hopeful that the IRS will expand the program for all taxpayers, not just the 25,000. 

Senator AYOTTE. Good. I hope so, too. And if not, we have legislation that would make sure that—we want people to know so that 

they can protect themselves. 

You’ve had the opportunity to hear from Ms. Weeks and also Mr. 

Walker, and I can assure you that they’re representative of many 

people who are in this room and what they’ve gone through, but 

many people who can’t be here today with this issue. It is my hope 

that the issue of getting the fraudulent return so the taxpayer can 

understand what’s been used, that that will be resolved as soon as 

possible. You gave me a date of October, and we’ll be following up 

on that. 

Mr. KOSKINEN. We’ll be talking. 

Senator AYOTTE. We’ll be talking on that. I heard, Commissioner, 

that you want to get to an issue where the taxpayer is not getting 

the run-around and having to deal with multiple people if they’re 

a victim of identity theft, and this seems to me a critical issue that 

we’ve got to do much better on so that people aren’t getting re-victimized after they’ve gone through having their personal information stolen. 

And finally, I hope that any time the IRS knows that someone’s 

information is being misused, that they will notify them and that 

will be something that is adopted for all taxpayers. 

There are a number of other issues that were raised here, and 

I think Mr. Walker has an invitation there to allow the professional community to help solve this problem too, to allow them to 

have access to the taxpayer information for their clients in appropriate ways to be able to solve this. 

So there were a number of issues that were raised today. 

I want to thank all of you for being here. I especially want to 

thank again Ms. Weeks and Mr. Walker. I plan to continue, obviously, working on this issue. I feel quite passionate about it, and 

we can do a lot better for taxpayers on every front, on prevention, 

and also how they are treated if, unfortunately, they become a victim of identity theft. This is a very critical issue. 

As you pointed out, Commissioner, we are facing a number of 

cyber-attacks that make this continue to be criminal networks who 

are misusing people’s information, and I think we need to do everything we can on the law enforcement end to go after them as well. 

So with that, I’m going to conclude this hearing. I may leave the 

record open for some additional written follow-up questions, and I 

appreciate your traveling to New Hampshire today for this hearing. 

Before we end, I just want to very much thank the Budget Committee staff who have come here, Adam Kamp and Katie Smith 

and my own staff member, Marne Marotta. I would also say if my 

staff who are here, Anne Warburton and Jane Hirsch, they work 
132 

on these cases on behalf of my constituents, and anyone who would 

like some help from our office, I do have my representatives here 

today and we would very much like to help you if you are a victim 

of identity theft to try, to cut through some of the rigmarole that 

we’ve talked about today. 

So, thank you all. 

[Whereupon, at 4:30 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.] 
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