Genealogy is the study of family. Usually, it is the study of your own family, unless you happen to be a professional genealogist who is helping someone else do her research. A woman in Montana decided to use genealogy research to file tax returns for dead people. This is not the intended purpose of genealogy research!
Shannon Kathlina Grimm, who lives in Montana, decided to do something unorthodox with her genealogy research. She is not a professional genealogist, but she was searching for specific information about people who were definitely not a part of her own family tree. She did not use the data she found about these strangers to create a family tree, or to contact their living relatives. Instead, she used their information to commit tax fraud.
Ms. Grimm used the internet to do some genealogy research. She looked for the Social Security numbers and birth dates of people who were deceased. Next, she used that information to file a false tax return.
Her method was to look for information about a deceased person who was the head of a household. After finding someone who fit this criteria, she would add as many dependents as she could find information for, in order to receive a bigger tax refund. It seems that Ms. Grimm was kind enough to teach another women how to file false tax returns too, and her instruction resulted in enabling that woman to receive a $4,320 refund.
The first time Ms. Grimm used genealogy to help her file a false tax return, it resulted in a refund – that came to her. Apparently, this was enough encouragement for Ms. Grimm to file more false tax returns. She ended up filing a total of 90 false returns. She received $129,498 in refunds, (that she was never supposed to receive), from the Internal Revenue Service.
This, plus the fact that she was filing all of these false tax returns electronically from the computers in her home, could be what caused the IRS to do an investigation. Ms. Grimm has now pled guilty to wire fraud and false claims. This story is an example of what could happen when a person intentionally uses genealogy research for nefarious goals.
The 1940 census was recently released. There are around 21 million Americans who are on that census and are still alive today. There are some fears that thieves may decide to try and dig up that information and use it to commit identity fraud. It is not known exactly which genealogy websites Ms. Grimm was using to assist her in filing fraudulent tax returns.
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