Washington, D.C. ? A man serving prison time for fraud told Congress on Thursday that using stolen identities to apply for tax refunds was “an easy way to make money quickly.”

“The system in my eyes is inviting criminals like myself to steal from the IRS, banks, et cetera,” Evangelos Dimitros Soukas said in testimony before the Senate Finance Committee.

Soukas, 28 – serving nearly eight years in prison for defrauding the government, banks and individuals of $1.1 million – said he was puzzled why the Internal Revenue Service doesn’t require PIN numbers or use of a mother’s maiden name when filing electronically or seeking information from IRS call centers.

The head of the IRS told the panel that stopping identity thieves isn’t simple, but the senators weren’t mollified.

IRS Commissioner Mark Everson said he would study new electronic safeguards but cautioned that there was a trade-off between adding new protections and efforts to make taxpaying more consumer friendly. “If you stop everything that you think is questionable, then you will be damaging the interests of many legitimate taxpayers,” he said.