The IRS' inspector general released a new report yesterday that reveals that most illegal immigrants who pay taxes have stolen someone else's identity.
The report also says that the tax agency doesn't do a good job of alerting Americans and legal immigrants know that they're being impersonated.
There are potentially 1.4 million people affected by the fraud in 2015, but the IRS audit only manages to identify half of those people.
Inspector general J. Russell George said:
“Cases of employment identity theft can cause significant burden to innocent taxpayers, including the incorrect computation of taxes based on income that does not belong to them."
The IRS knows of 2.4 million people a year who file taxes with an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number, which is typically given to immigrants who aren't authorized to work.
But the IRS isn't allowed to talk with Homeland Security to help them identify who those people are and where they are.