Tax shenanigans
The Massachusetts Department of Revenue says I owe them money.
In 2012, someone with my name worked in MA, earned money, and had taxes withheld from their check.
In early 2013, someone with my name filed a tax return in MA claiming that amount of earnings and withholding.
MA doesn't believe these are the same two people. They say they don't have enough identification info* from me (the person who filed the tax return) to prove that I'm the person who paid the withholding, so I owe that amount [again].
I have a few questions, the answers to any of which might help me navigate this problem:
1) If they don't have enough info to connect my tax return to my withholding, how do they have enough info to levy my bank account?
2) If I'm not the person who paid that withholding, then once MA collects the money from me that they say I owe, they will have an extra thousand dollars or so from someone who doesn't owe them taxes. How can that person (who also happens to be me) get that money back?
3) If MA says that I owe them the money AND the person who paid the withholding also owed it, then that other person should be in trouble for not filing a tax return, right? Is there something I can do to trigger an investigation for that?
* - I don't have a social security card. I lost mine ~10 years ago. For the first 3-5 years, I couldn't replace it because MS didn't believe I was me when I requested a new birth certificate. They've since changed that. Now that I've got it, the SSA dislikes my birth certificate for some reason. I don't really care, since it virtually never matters that I don't have one. In those ten years, the MA DOR is the only organization that has made a fuss about it.
In 2012, someone with my name worked in MA, earned money, and had taxes withheld from their check.
In early 2013, someone with my name filed a tax return in MA claiming that amount of earnings and withholding.
MA doesn't believe these are the same two people. They say they don't have enough identification info* from me (the person who filed the tax return) to prove that I'm the person who paid the withholding, so I owe that amount [again].
I have a few questions, the answers to any of which might help me navigate this problem:
1) If they don't have enough info to connect my tax return to my withholding, how do they have enough info to levy my bank account?
2) If I'm not the person who paid that withholding, then once MA collects the money from me that they say I owe, they will have an extra thousand dollars or so from someone who doesn't owe them taxes. How can that person (who also happens to be me) get that money back?
3) If MA says that I owe them the money AND the person who paid the withholding also owed it, then that other person should be in trouble for not filing a tax return, right? Is there something I can do to trigger an investigation for that?
* - I don't have a social security card. I lost mine ~10 years ago. For the first 3-5 years, I couldn't replace it because MS didn't believe I was me when I requested a new birth certificate. They've since changed that. Now that I've got it, the SSA dislikes my birth certificate for some reason. I don't really care, since it virtually never matters that I don't have one. In those ten years, the MA DOR is the only organization that has made a fuss about it.