2,300 Small Charities May Be Victims of Identify Theft

At least 2,300 nonprofits —most of them small or defunct—are victims of identify theft in part because of problems with the Internal Revenue Service’s electronic filing system, says Forbes.

The charities all list the same person as an official and all give the same mail box drop in Las Vegas.

The IRS declined to comment on the allegations that someone had appropriated the tax identity of the nonprofits. Forbes could not find William Alexander, the man whose name is listed on the form.

Among the charities that seem to have been victims of a fraud is True Blessings Ministries, a nonprofit in the Cleveland suburb of Grafton.

Susan Knauff, who runs the organization with her husband, said she recently contacted the IRS to check on its filing and discovered that the service said her nonprofit was located in Las Vegas and that someone named William Alexander was one of its officials. “I’ve never met him, and I’ve never been to Las Vegas,” she told the magazine.