The Internal Revenue Service joined forces with representatives of tax preparation and software companies, payroll and tax processors and state tax administrators to combat identity theft refund fraud. The collaboration resulted from a security summit held in March between the government and private sector industry leaders.
This effort identifies extra steps to validate taxpayer and tax return information. It will result in the sharing of more information between industry and the government, including standardized sharing of suspected identity fraud information. Steps include: taxpayer authentication sharing, extra review of filed returns, review of computer device identification tied to the return’s origin, reviewing the time it takes to file the return to detect computer mechanized fraud, and capturing metadata in the filing transmission.
