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A year after outcry, IRS still doesn’t offer taxpayers alternative to ID.me

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Re: A year after outcry, IRS still doesn’t offer taxpayers alternative to ID.me

#51

Post by lotsofpulp »

OkGoDoIt wrote: post #37
irrational wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn’t it have your social security number?

I run a small business and I need to collect W-9's from basically everyone I ever pay, which means I have an absurd amount of SSN's in PDFs sitting in a folder on my computer. It feels very wrong, but apparently that's how taxes work. Kind of makes SSN's feel less secure/protection-worthy than I used to believe shrug

> It feels very wrong, but apparently that's how taxes work. Kind of makes SSN's feel less secure/protection-worthy than I used to believe shrug

It is very right, because social security numbers are not meant to be a secret.

What is wrong is being liable for a debt (or whatever) because a creditor failed to properly verify the identity of a borrower.

Those whole situation can be easily fixed by removing the ability of lenders and governments to claim they verified identity by simply asking for SSN/date if birth.

We have pocket computers with video cameras that can record and transmit spoken agreements within seconds, and we have a nationwide network of USPS offices that already do in person identity verification for issuing passports. Executing the solution is basically done, all that is left is political.

Re: A year after outcry, IRS still doesn’t offer taxpayers alternative to ID.me

#52

Post by Terretta »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #21

> Five years later and more than $187 million in government investment later, however, it still hasn’t been widely rolled out. I know anything like this is going to be more complicated than it seems. Integration of lots of legacy systems, of which the federla government is probably about as complicated as it gets, with the most security-sensitive application possible. Still, and I'm really not an expert here, but I a…

$187M = $37M per year

At average FAANG salaries with overhead (benefits, space, equipment both desk and datacenter/cloud, internal workplace support functions like Recruiting, IT, HR, ER, DEI...) that's 60 people.

That's not many when dealing with multiple massive counterparties. You'll see ratios of non-dev to dev easily 10:1 to 30:1.

Yes, they could genuinely spend $187M so far on a project accomplishing only 2 devs x 5 years worth of work and rework.

Re: A year after outcry, IRS still doesn’t offer taxpayers alternative to ID.me

#53

Post by anon291 »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #51
OkGoDoIt wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I run a small business and I need to collect W-9's from basically everyone I ever pay, which means I have an absurd amount of SSN's in PDFs sitting in a folder on my computer. It feels very wrong, but apparently that's how taxes work. Kind of makes SSN's feel less secure/protection-worthy than I used to believe shrug

> It feels very wrong, but apparently that's how taxes work. Kind of makes SSN's feel less secure/protection-worthy than I used to believe shrug It is very right, because social security numbers are not meant to be a secret. What is wrong is being liable for a debt (or whatever) because a creditor failed to properly verify the identity of a borrower. Those whole situation can be easily fixed by removing the ability o…

> What is wrong is being liable for a debt (or whatever) because a creditor failed to properly verify the identity of a borrower

You're never liable for a debt you didn't sign for. If someone else used your information, don't pay it. The court will always side with you.

Re: A year after outcry, IRS still doesn’t offer taxpayers alternative to ID.me

#54

Post by prasadjoglekar »

ROTMetro wrote: post #27
toomuchtodo wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disclaimer: I interviewed with the USDS team that was embedded in IRS circa 2015-2016 to solve identity pre-ID.me, thoughts and opinions are my own. I have tried to get info out of IRS on the topic using FOIA requests, but they have not been forthcoming. I think there is heartburn over the whole ID.me situation (which they rushed into due to return fraud that occurred due to lacking knowledge based proofing systems,…

Please not the post office. Small town post offices are so vindictive with no oversite giving them this power would be horrific. My house has not received mail for years now because my mother had cancer and could not get her mail timely enough for them. The turned her mailbox off and made her open a PO box if she wanted mail. When I later moved to the home I inherited I was not and have not been able to restore servi…

You may have already done this but if not: USPS is pretty close to being a federal agency. It is funded by Congress. Call your congressman's office in your town/county and ask for help with a federal agency. It works wonders for all sorts of issues, and this sort of pettiness will likely get sorted out.

Re: A year after outcry, IRS still doesn’t offer taxpayers alternative to ID.me

#55

Post by throwaway57f43 »

I am a US person living abroad . I tried to register with ID.me and got stuck on one of the last steps after scanning my face with my webcam, it asked for my phone number. ID.me said all my numbers were not valid, I assume they need a real phone number and not phone forwarding services like Google Voice that I use. I guess my only option to complete the ID.me signup is buy a US sim card, send it to my country, activate it and see if ID.me accepts it. I wish there was an easier alternative.

Re: A year after outcry, IRS still doesn’t offer taxpayers alternative to ID.me

#56

Post by jrochkind1 »

Terretta wrote: post #52
jrochkind1 wrote: post #21

> Five years later and more than $187 million in government investment later, however, it still hasn’t been widely rolled out. I know anything like this is going to be more complicated than it seems. Integration of lots of legacy systems, of which the federla government is probably about as complicated as it gets, with the most security-sensitive application possible. Still, and I'm really not an expert here, but I a…

$187M = $37M per year At average FAANG salaries with overhead (benefits, space, equipment both desk and datacenter/cloud, internal workplace support functions like Recruiting, IT, HR, ER, DEI...) that's 60 people. That's not many when dealing with multiple massive counterparties. You'll see ratios of non-dev to dev easily 10:1 to 30:1. Yes, they could genuinely spend $187M so far on a project accomplishing only 2 dev…

That's actually good perspective,thanks!

Re: A year after outcry, IRS still doesn’t offer taxpayers alternative to ID.me

#57

Post by lotsofpulp »

anon291 wrote: post #53
lotsofpulp wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It feels very wrong, but apparently that's how taxes work. Kind of makes SSN's feel less secure/protection-worthy than I used to believe shrug It is very right, because social security numbers are not meant to be a secret. What is wrong is being liable for a debt (or whatever) because a creditor failed to properly verify the identity of a borrower. Those whole situation can be easily fixed by removing the ability o…

> What is wrong is being liable for a debt (or whatever) because a creditor failed to properly verify the identity of a borrower You're never liable for a debt you didn't sign for. If someone else used your information, don't pay it. The court will always side with you.

Having to spend time and money to deal with the courts is a liability.

Also, credit and credit reporting is utility/infrastructure with how life is lived, including access to a place to live. So much that the federal government obligated credit reporting agencies to provide people an annual report. Having to spend time and money to fix it is also a liability, in my opinion.

Re: A year after outcry, IRS still doesn’t offer taxpayers alternative to ID.me

#58

Post by jrochkind1 »

akira2501 wrote: post #24
jrochkind1 wrote: post #21

> Five years later and more than $187 million in government investment later, however, it still hasn’t been widely rolled out. I know anything like this is going to be more complicated than it seems. Integration of lots of legacy systems, of which the federla government is probably about as complicated as it gets, with the most security-sensitive application possible. Still, and I'm really not an expert here, but I a…

> with the most security-sensitive application possible. I certainly don't see my tax returns that way.. is that a commonly held view?

I'm not talking about "tax returns", I'm talking about "SSO used by citizens/residents/customers for the federal government", which is what login.gov is.

Re: A year after outcry, IRS still doesn’t offer taxpayers alternative to ID.me

#59

Post by segmondy »

Tried to do the face scanning for ID.me. Try as I may, it never would work. I tried so many different backgrounds, dark, light, pattern. Indoors, outdoors, sunlight, artificial light, 2 different phones. It finally refused and told me to contact them. I just gave up and moved on.

Re: A year after outcry, IRS still doesn’t offer taxpayers alternative to ID.me

#60

Post by jrochkind1 »

woodruffw wrote: post #25
jrochkind1 wrote: post #21

> Five years later and more than $187 million in government investment later, however, it still hasn’t been widely rolled out. I know anything like this is going to be more complicated than it seems. Integration of lots of legacy systems, of which the federla government is probably about as complicated as it gets, with the most security-sensitive application possible. Still, and I'm really not an expert here, but I a…

> Or maybe the quote is wrong that it "hasn't been widely rolled out"? I think it's wrong in some senses: Login.gov has been rolled out to the SSA, OSHA, Treasury, RRB, VA, DHS, and quite a few other orgs and agencies. There's no one good metric for these things, but if you measure it by org/agency size and/or budget, Login.gov looks very good. I agree that $187 million is an eye-popping number, and I wish we had the…

For me, it's not a question of whether the cost is "worth it", but that the cost seems very very high for what seems to have been produced.
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