Unemployment-benefits fraud victims are getting tax bills -- and major headaches

[DonViejo]

By Tami Luhby, CNN

Updated 8:15 AM ET, Fri February 26, 2021

(CNN)Theodore Taylor was pretty surprised when he received a tax document recently from Ohio's unemployment agency showing that he had been paid $1,300 in benefits last year.

A Philadelphia resident, Taylor was employed in Pennsylvania during all of 2020 -- by the Internal Revenue Service. So when he got a 1099-G tax document earlier this month, he found out the hard way that he was a victim of unemployment benefits fraud -- where criminals steal people's identities and file jobless claims in their names.

This scam has exploded over the past year, triggered by the historic federal expansion of unemployment benefits in Congress' Covid relief packages.

What's even more frustrating, Taylor says, is that he hasn't been able to obtain a corrected tax document from Ohio's Department of Job and Family Services although he filled out a fraud report, called and emailed the agency, and even reached out to elected officials.

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https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/26/politics/unemployment-benefits-fraud-taxes/index.html