ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Maryland taxpayers are worried about their personal information getting into the wrong hands after a printing error by the Maryland Comptroller’s Office.
This information included full names, addresses, Social Security Numbers, and it was all sent to someone else.
READ MORE: Tax form mix-up: Marylanders report receiving 1099s belonging to someone else
This error impacts 6,000 individuals including many childcare providers and port workers who received assistance following the Key Bridge collapse.
“I panicked. I was like, ‘Oh, my God, who is this person?’” said Crystal Bracey, a worker at the Port of Baltimore.
On Monday, Bracey received an envelope from the Maryland Comptroller’s Office with her name on it, but inside, she found someone else’s 1099-G tax form.
“I don't know who this person is. It has their Social Security Number, so I automatically knew that mine was with someone else,” Bracey said.
When she went to work at the Port, her co-workers said the same thing happened to them.
“Did you all get the 1099 with the wrong information? And they did, so that's how we discovered,” said Bracey.
“And do you usually get a 1099?” asked WMAR-2 News Mallory Sofastaii.
“We don’t. The reason why we got a 1099 was because of that Key Bridge collapse. The Key Bridge collapsed, it made us not be able to work for over two months, so they gave us the Worker Support Program from the state to give us payments so we can live our lives while we were out of work from the Key Bridge collapse, and this is the thanks they give us? By giving us other people's Social Security Numbers?” Bracey replied.
Comptroller of Maryland Brooke Lierman is apologizing for this mix up.
“If someone had checked the envelope with the tax forms inside, they would’ve caught this mistake right away. Why didn’t that happen and what quality checks do you have?” Sofastaii asked Lierman.
“That’s a great question. So our process, we print over 850,000 1099s a year, and this time there was a printer malfunction, where at some point throughout the printing job, there was a malfunction, and when it started reprinting, it wasn't caught. And the simple truth of the matter is that we should have been able to catch it, and we should’ve had a better process in place,” Lierman responded.
She added that they’re now changing how they do things starting with re-issuing the 1099-G forms for the roughly 6,000 people impacted, and this time they’ll look a little different.
“So no longer will we put full Social Security Numbers on anything that we mail out on 1099s. We also put in place additional processes so that as things are printed, occasionally we stop, we take a second, and we look at everything that's being printed, and we put several sets of eyes on it to make sure that it is correct before we complete the entire batch,” said Lierman.
While these are promising changes, Bracey is worried the damage is already done.
“How would the Comptroller of Maryland feel if someone gave somebody her Social Security Number in the mail that's not her? How would she feel about that?” asked Bracey.
Sofastaii posed that question to Lierman.
“Oh no, I’d be very nervous and very scared, absolutely, that’s why I’m so apologetic that this happened to them. I have the deepest level of respect for [port workers], and certainly we're doing everything we can to make it right,” said Lierman.
“Would you consider compensation to those impacted?” Sofastaii asked.
“Well, certainly the credit monitoring has a dollar value on it, and so, we are certainly always happy to talk with individuals about what we can do to make things right for them,” said Lierman.
The Comptroller’s Office is mailing out corrected 1099-G forms starting Thursday. Taxpayers can also download their form online through the General Accounting Division Online Service Center.
If you received someone else’s tax form, you’re encouraged to destroy it immediately. The agency plans to send out more information on free credit monitoring services for one year to those impacted.
The agency also stressed that while these forms were printed in-house, no other tax documents were impacted.
Affected taxpayers can also email gad@marylandtaxes.gov with the subject line “1099G Issue” with questions or concerns.