Tag: social security number

Claiming a social security number is the “Mark of the Beast” not a good defense – so saith the IRS

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A Pennsylvania man has been convicted of failing to file his income tax returns for 21 years because he considered using a Social Security number akin to using the “mark of the beast” spelled out in the Bible.

James Schlosser, who lives in the town of Bird-in-Hand, was convicted in federal court in Allentown…

Prosecutors say by failing to file the returns from 1994 to 2014 he didn’t report $2.3 million in income he earned as a salesman of medical equipment. Prosecutors say he funneled the money through foreign business trusts and corporations he registered in Nevada.

An attorney for the 59-year-old Schlosser didn’t immediately comment…He’ll be sentenced June 10 when he faces a maximum of five years in prison and $450,000 in fines.

Wonder if he’ll ask Trump for a pardon?

Medicare wants more time to stop using Security Security number

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Five years after being told to look at taking Social Security numbers off Medicare cards, Medicare officials told lawmakers at a sometimes-tense House hearing Wednesday that they still need six more months to figure out how much it will cost.

Rep. Sam Johnson, R-Texas, chairman of the House Ways and Means Social Security subcommittee, said if military and health organizations can do it “and you were asked to do it so many years ago, I don’t understand what’s taking so long.”

Johnson introduced a bill in April that would prohibit Medicare from including Social Security numbers on benefit cards. The legislation was referred to committee, but Johnson insisted Medicare should be able to simply replace the old cards with new ones.

Medicare Chief Information Officer Tony Trenkle indicated the process would be more complicated, involving updating IT systems, educating Medicare beneficiaries about the changes and reassessing budget priorities laid out by Congress…

Trenkle assured lawmakers that the issue was a priority, but he could only offer a timetable for the change based on a report discredited by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress…

The Defense Department launched a strategy to remove Social Security numbers from identification cards issued to service members, their families and retirees in April 2011. Veterans Affairs has also stopped issuing ID cards and health authorization cards that show the veteran’s Social Security number. When asked by Johnson why the Medicare agency “can’t follow in the footsteps of DOD and VA,” Trenkle said the organizations are set up differently and conduct different operations.

“It’s not exactly comparing apples to apples,” Trenkle said.

The man’s an idiot, a liar or simply a fool. It’s like comparing an Excel spreadsheet to an Excel spreadsheet.

Kathleen King, director of health care at the GAO, indicated that changing from a Social Security number to a new ID number would require Medicare to work with health care providers who might have “antiquated” systems, complicating the process…Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., said the agency would be working with “over a million small businesses, some of whom we’re trying to nudge into the world of electronic record-keeping.”

Hogwash. My Medicare doctor asks me to show my Medicare card everytime I walk in the door – just in case there’s been a change. Providers can make the change one person at a time.

“We all know Americans are told not to carry their Social Security cards to protect their identity in case a wallet is lost or stolen,” Johnson said. “Yet seniors are told they must carry their Medicare card which displays the Social Security number.”

Police officer caught using social security number of a 7-yr-old

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No one was curious about someone born in 2004 wanting to buy one of these?

A Milwaukee police officer has been charged with stealing a 7-year-old Racine boy’s Social Security number to make purchases including a high-end Mercedes-Benz, according to a criminal complaint.

Lymon L. Taylor, 33, is charged with felony identity theft in Waukesha County. If convicted, he faces up to six years in prison…

According to the criminal complaint, Milwaukee detectives were investigating identity theft by another man, Lee Ellis, who led them to Taylor…

Ellis told detectives he and Taylor discussed how to improve their credit ratings and found a company in California that promised to fix credit for $2,500 a person, according to the complaint.

The two men plus a third, who has not been charged, received what looked like Social Security numbers, the complaint says. They were told to use their own name and the new numbers as their Social Security number. They also were told to use an address other than their own because addresses are associated with a person’s credit rating, which in their cases were bad, according to the criminal complaint…

Taylor, who previously had purchased six vehicles with his true Social Security number, used the fraudulently obtained number to buy a 2007 Mercedes-Benz S550 from Ernie Von Schledorn in Menomonee Falls in June, according to the complaint, which cites special agent Michael Clemens of the Social Security Administration’s Office of the Inspector General…

The Social Security number Taylor used actually belongs to a boy in Racine.

Detective Charles Shepard…contacted the boy’s father, who said he wanted whoever was using the number to be prosecuted…

Shepard interviewed employees at the car dealership and A-B Credit Union, which authorized the loan, asking how someone could buy an expensive car with no credit history.

A fresh Social Security number would bring a high credit score, according to the credit union. That credit score coupled with a good job would be good enough to buy such a car, they said.

The music goes round and round and it comes out here. Someday, somewhere, there will be a police department that checks up on the boys in blue on the street. That coppers often think they are above the law – doesn’t help, either.