2004 Taxes, wages she didnt receive

[nerddotcom]

A friend of mine lost a few of her w-2s last year while moving and unfortunately did not get her income taxes filed on time, the IRS contacted her to let her know they were going to estimate her return automatically. About a month later she received another letter where the IRS said she owed them over $500 in unpaid taxes, after reveiwing her list of employers for the 2004 year she saw that there was over $11k earned from a company she had never even heard of, much less worked for, she contacted their HR department via telephone to be told that they had record of employing someone with her same first name but different last name and with a matching SS#. What is a good course of action in this situation, should she employ a lawyer, perhaps even prepaid legal ins. How are situations like this usually handled and if she files her 2004 taxes will the IRS take that as proof that she did not work for this company?


What is the name of your state? California

[LdiJ]

Originally Posted by nerddotcom

A friend of mine lost a few of her w-2s last year while moving and unfortunately did not get her income taxes filed on time, the IRS contacted her to let her know they were going to estimate her return automatically. About a month later she received another letter where the IRS said she owed them over $500 in unpaid taxes, after reveiwing her list of employers for the 2004 year she saw that there was over $11k earned from a company she had never even heard of, much less worked for, she contacted their HR department via telephone to be told that they had record of employing someone with her same first name but different last name and with a matching SS#. What is a good course of action in this situation, should she employ a lawyer, perhaps even prepaid legal ins. How are situations like this usually handled and if she files her 2004 taxes will the IRS take that as proof that she did not work for this company?


What is the name of your state? California

She is mostly likely a victim of identity theft.

Her first step would be to contact the police.

She needs to prove to the IRS that she was not employed by that company. One way to do that is to visit the HR department of the company in person, so that they can confirm that she was not the person they employed, and can provide her documentation to that effect.