On Friday, Minnesota announced that it had sent tax forms to residents that file paper tax treturns themselves.  The tax forms came with a bonus - at least for identity thieves.  Social security numbers of the recipients were on the mailing labels.  Here is the story.

A computer error was blamed.  Let’s be realistic.  It wasn’t a computer error.  Some person somewhere made a mistake.  Some other people somewhere else forgot to run quality assurance/quality control on the end product.  Or, in the interest of time, some other people saw the error and didn’t hit the panic button until it was too late.

Of course, Minnesota is going to take appropriate steps to make sure this issue never arises again.  Or so they say.  How many times do issues like this have to arise before governments get with the program and implement practical safeguards, rather than creating paper tigers and CYA solutions? 

If a company had done this rather than state government, how would Minnesota be reacting?  It seems to me that the situation should be taken just as seriously here.

Filed by Coleen Davis at 12:05 am under Business Acumen, Planning Tips, Solving Problems