According to news reports, many physicians who waited till April 13 to file taxes may have become victims of tax fraud.

Many doctors have reported being surprised when they attempted to file the taxes on April 15, and found out that their taxes had already been filed. Filing fraud taxes on behalf of another person is a simple tax fraud scheme that is fairly common. In these schemes, the person then pockets the refunds that the victim was eligible for.

This scheme is fairly simple to operate. The fraudster will access a company's W-2 database, which provides all the data about employees of the firm, their earnings, as well as personal data. With all that information, a person can find it very easy to file returns on behalf of the employee. In fact, some fraud schemes use fraud software that actually automates fraudulent and tax return filing. Some payroll systems are much more vulnerable to hacking than other types of systems.

The Internal Revenue Service has, for weeks now, been embroiled in a controversy that alleged that some of its top officials were involved in unfair scrutiny of Tea Party groups in tax matters. Lori Lerner, the official who was the subject of an investigation into the matter by Congress, recently retired.

The Internal Revenue Service recently released a statement, saying that Lerner has retired, effective immediately. Lerner served as the agency's former director of exempt organizations.

Since May, she had been placed on administration leave. An internal agency board was soon due to begin the process of firing her, based on breach of duties and mismanagement.