BREVARD COUNTY, Fla — A central Florida woman believes she’s a victim of identity theft after the Internal Revenue Service let her know she owes thousands of dollars on income she claims she never made.
Alyse Marrone told Action 9 Consumer Investigator Jeff Deal, “I got a random letter from them, and I actually thought it was a scam when I first got it.”
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She said disputing the big tax bill has turned into a nightmare.
The dispute is over her 2021 taxes and the amount she owes the IRS keeps getting bigger. The IRS seems to believe she worked two different jobs in two different states. Marrone told Action 9 she was working a demanding job with long hours for SpaceX in Florida, but the IRS informed her she also owes tax on income she supposedly earned while working for DoorDash in Utah, more than 2000 miles away.
2021 was a big year for Alyse Marrone. She bought a home in Brevard County and was working for SpaceX.
“I mean, anybody who knows SpaceX or works for SpaceX knows that you don’t have time for a life,” Marrone said.
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The U.S. military veteran said she worked hard and at the end of the year filed her taxes like she always has, but in 2023 she received the surprise notice from the IRS.
She explained, “It was a letter stating that I owed the IRS $14,000 in back taxes.”
The letter shows she earned more than $32,000 in “non-employee compensation” from DoorDash that she didn’t claim in 2021. In other words she was a DoorDash driver. Marrone said the IRS later told her it was for her time working in Utah. According to Marrone, there are a few problems with that. First, she’s never worked for DoorDash and second, she’s never been in Utah.
“I’ve never been to Utah. I’ve come close. I worked for a company a couple years ago where I was in Washington state, but I’ve never been to Utah,” she said.
Marrone pointed out traveling thousands of miles back and forth between Florida and Utah to pick-up gig work delivering food doesn’t really make sense. She believes someone stole her identity and worked as a DoorDash driver without paying taxes.
Brian Fay, an enrolled agent, who runs Orlando Tax Accounting wouldn’t be surprised.
Fay said, “It’s increasing every year. Every year I hear more and more stories from the Treasury Department about increasing tax fraud specifically related to identity theft.”
He said it’s also possible someone accidentally used her social security number or DoorDash submitted her number by mistake.
“The most important thing is when you start receiving these scary letters from the IRS is not to put your head in the sand,” Fay said.
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He said the onus is on the taxpayer to provide evidence of a mistake. Start by trying to get documentation from the company and filing an identity theft affidavit with the IRS, which Alyse Marrone did with the help of a tax attorney. But in March of this year, she received a new letter from the IRS that states it “found no indication identity theft affected the tax periods above.” She said DoorDash hasn’t helped with documentation.
DoorDash didn’t provide Action 9 with any on-the-record information either. On its own website, DoorDash seems to acknowledge this is a potential problem. It tells drivers what steps to take if they suspect their “personal information has been used to create a fraudulent Dasher account.” And it says, “if unauthorized account activity is confirmed, we will deactivate the fraudulent account(s).”
But that’s of no consolation to Alyse Marrone. She now owes the IRS more than $19,000 because of penalties and interest and is worried the government could start seizing her assets.
“They can take everything from me for something I didn’t even do,” she said.
After Consumer Investigator Jeff Deal contacted the IRS, it had a taxpayer advocate reach out to Marrone. That person let her know they would look into opening a case for her and would be back in touch in about a month.
Check back for updates on how this situation gets worked out.
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