Tax Data Sent to Wrong Homes

State officials are blaming a software glitch for sending 64,000 tax forms containing Social Security numbers and income information to the wrong addresses.

The information was mailed out by the Employment Development Department.

Consumer advocates said the error could expose the intended recipients to identity theft.

“I think people expect government agencies to protect their personal financial information more than private industry,” said Ken McEldowney, executive director of Consumer Action, a consumer group in San Francisco.

“As this shows, that’s not the case. They’re just as sloppy.”

The 1099 tax forms were supposed to go to people who had changed addresses and had received unemployment, paid family leave or disability benefits.

The Employment Development Department said the software garbled the addresses on the forms by combining old street addresses with the recipients’ new cities and ZIP Codes.

Department spokeswoman Velessata Kelley said the forms were mailed in January and the error was discovered last month. Intended recipients weren’t told about the error until last week.

The department “had to identify who had been impacted and how to correct the problem,” Kelly said in explaining the delay.