Identity theft is a serious and growing problem which has a significant impact on tax administration. Undetected tax refund fraud results in significant unintended Federal outlays and erodes taxpayer confidence in the Federal tax system. This audit examined whether the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has improved its programs and procedures to identify and prevent fraudulent tax refunds resulting from identity theft. It found that expanded identity theft detection efforts are helping identify fraudulent tax returns. However, billions of dollars in potential fraudulent refunds continue to be paid, totaling approx. $3.6 billion, which is down by $1.6 billion compared to the $5.2 billion in fraudulent tax refunds reported for Tax Year 2010. The report also shows that the IRS has still not taken actions to prevent multiple tax refunds from being deposited to the same bank account, providing identity thieves with an easy method to obtain fraudulent tax refunds. Tables. This is a print on demand report.

Detection has improved : however, identity theft continues to result in billions of dollars in potentially fraudulent tax refunds