What to do if you receive a tax form for unemployment benefits you never applied for

Newsroom Newswire

Now that it’s tax season and tax forms are arriving in the mail, many people are beginning to find a surprise in their mailbox: an IRS form 1099-G reporting unemployment benefit income that they did not actually apply for or receive.

If you receive a form 1099-G but did not file for unemployment, someone may have stolen your identity to commit unemployment fraud.

Los Angeles attorney David Fleck, who has experience in fraud cases, said it is one of the easiest frauds to perpetrate and has become common during the pandemic. As unemployment numbers swelled, unemployment departm...