Tax cheats stole her dead son’s identity, mom says

Posted Oct 11, 2011 by ELAINE SILVESTRINI/THE TAMPA TRIBUNE

Updated Oct 11, 2011 at 09:47 AM

WINTER HAVEN - For Natalai Douglas, losing her son is something she will never get over.

Just two weeks after he turned 5 last year, Terrance “T.J.” Hamilton Jr. drowned in a swimming pool while visiting his mother’s godparents.

Just a few months later, Douglas learned someone had stolen her child’s identity, using his Social Security number on a fraudulent tax return.

“I had just buried him,” Douglas said. “This is like the bottom of the pit for me. Whoever did this, they’re a big criminal. …They’re a heartless criminal.”

Douglas said she learned of the fraud after she filed her tax return in March. Her tax preparer, she said, notified her the return had been rejected by the Internal Revenue Service.

She was able to get her refund only after resubmitting her tax return without claiming T.J. as a dependent. The IRS, she said, told her she would get a letter – as would the person who stole her son’s identity – detailing the documentation she should send to prove she was his mother.

Douglas is still waiting for the letter. The IRS, she said, told her it knew who used T.J.‘s identity but won’t give her that information.

“I would really like to know who this person is,” she said. “This shouldn’t be tolerated. It’s not fair.”

She said she went to the state attorney’s office and the sheriff’s office but was told the matter was outside their jurisdiction.

Douglas’ tax preparer, Michael Miller of Miller Tax Service in Winter Haven, said he has between 1,500 and 2,000 clients. This year, he said, between 25 and 30 of his clients were victims of identity theft and tax fraud. Douglas is the only one whose dead child’s information was stolen, he said.

“It’s incredible because it’s so easy,” he said. “I’ve seen this happen very often these days.”

Douglas said she has no idea who stole her son’s identity. But her experience echoes the tale told in April by Terry McClung Jr. in testimony before a subcommittee chaired by Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla.

McClung, who lives in Maryland, said he and his wife lost their baby daughter, Kaitlyn, to sudden infant death syndrome on May 6, 2009. The following February, the day after they electronically filed their tax return, they were notified that the return had been rejected because someone else had already claimed Kaitlyn as a dependent.

McClung said he and his wife spent a day on the phone, going back and forth between the IRS and the Social Security Administration.

They were told to file paper returns. They were told they and whoever “mistakenly” claimed Kaitlyn as a dependent would receive a notice stating one of them had to file a an amended return. The notice didn’t arrive until November.

“If neither one of us amended our return, we would both get another letter requesting proof that Kaitlyn was our dependent,” McClung said. “As long as the other person amended their return, this would all go away and that person would not have to pay any penalty or face any consequences. Learning that made all this more sickening.”

McClung said they also learned about the Social Security Death Index, which is available to anyone online. That index contains the names, dates of birth and Social Security numbers of the deceased and has become a lucrative source for people wanting to commit fraud.

Since that hearing, Nelson has introduced legislation aimed at reducing tax refund fraud. Among the proposed provisions are limitations on public access to the Social Security Death Index.

Douglas, who is a minister at her church, said T.J. was like a little preacher, a young man in a little boy’s body. He would pray and preach, and use a hairbrush as a microphone to spread the word.

That a crime was committed in this boy’s name sullies his memory, Douglas said. She said she also thinks her son knows what is happening. “He’s definitely being hurt by it,” she said.

T.J.‘s father was in jail on charges of armed trespass and armed trespass when this all happened, but Douglas said she knows he didn’t file a tax return with their son as a dependent because she saw his return.

Asked what she would tell the IRS commissioner if she could talk to him, she had just two words: “Stop it.”