The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration today released There Are Billions of Dollars in Undetected Tax Refund Fraud Resulting From Identity Theft (2012-42-080):
Undetected tax refund fraud results in significant unintended Federal outlays and erodes taxpayer confidence in our Nation’s tax system. Our analysis of tax returns using characteristics of identity theft confirmed by the IRS identified approximately 1.5 million undetected tax returns with potentially fraudulent tax refunds totaling in excess of $5.2 billion. TIGTA estimates the IRS could issue $21 billion in potentially fraudulent tax refunds resulting from identity theft over the next five years.
