Dead Toddler's Identity Stolen for Tax Return
Grieving parents left fighting to prove deceased little girl was really theirs.
March 12, 2010— -- Less than a year after a Washington couple buried their 21-month-old daughter, they are fighting to prove to the Internal Revenue Service that they were her parents.
Jessica Struthers and Matt Bock were stunned to learn that someone else had stolen their daughter's Social Security number and claimed little Ava on a tax form for the deduction benefits.
"We were shocked. Who does this?" Struthers said. "And, of course, we want to know who and they [IRS] won't tell you."
The couple, who live in Blaine, Wash., with their three sons and a foster child they are working to adopt, said the person who stole Ava's identity has already received the federal tax return worth several thousand dollars for their deceased daughter.
"It makes me sick," Struthers said.
The burden of proof, they said, is now on them.
Ava, born in November 2007, was a twin who made a habit of running on the tips of her toes and stretching out the word "Daddy" with delight when Bock came home from work.
She died in August after she climbed into the family's backyard swimming pool and drowned.
"After she passed away, I feel like a big hole got cut into my heart," Bock said.
For her grief-stricken parents, having to go to great lengths to prove she was their daughter is sometimes just too much to bear.
"You just don't want to talk about it every single day," Struthers said. "That was supposed to be the closing of the year and trying to move on. It just seems like we can't get past that."
The couple, who are engaged and file separate taxes, found out that their daughter's identity had been stolen when Bock's electronic tax filing was rejected about 48 hours after he submitted it. Bock said he thought at first there was some kind of discrepancy because of Ava's death.
That's when he learned that someone else had already claimed his daughter. And then, not knowing Ava had died, an IRS agent told Bock that the easiest thing to do to resolve the problem would be to simply leave her off his own filing and try again next year.
"There is no next year," Bock said he told the IRS agent, his anger rising.
"We're not looking for the easiest thing to do," Struthers said. "Whoever claimed her does not have the right to claim her."
The IRS declined to comment, saying it is against policy to discuss individual taxpayers.
"I'd like them to go to jail. It's fraud," Bock said of whoever stole Ava's identity. "They're messing with the IRS. But the IRS is just going to lay there and take it. They don't care."
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