s the IRS, taxpayers, and tax practitioners get ready for the 2017 tax filing season, the IRS touted the successes that it and its Security Summit partners have had in reducing tax return identity theft during the 2016 filing season and described how it will expand its efforts in the fight for 2017 (IR-2016-144). Security Summit partners include state tax authorities, tax preparation businesses (including tax preparation software companies), and banks.
For the first nine months of 2016, the number of tax return identity theft victims was reduced by half from the same period in 2015, from 512,278 down to 237,750, the IRS reported. In addition, many more fraudulent returns were identified and intercepted before processing, the number of fraudulent refunds paid by the IRS and identified by banks fell greatly, and information shared with states and tax preparers and new data elements reduced fraudulent returns and refunds even more. For the 2017 filing season, the IRS and its partners announced additional "trusted customer" features that would help reduce this crime even more. Those plans include:
The IRS also announced that it is forming an Identity Theft Tax Refund Fraud Information Sharing and Analysis Center, which will be an improved early warning system that identifies new identity theft schemes and quickly shares that information among Summit partners so that all participants can enact safeguards. The IRS also reiterated the role taxpayers and tax practitioners can play in stopping tax return identity theft by being aware of data security issues—especially avoiding phishing schemes. Read Article: http://www.journalofaccountancy.com/news/2016/nov/expanded-identity-theft-safeguards-201615469.html Comments are closed.
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September 2017
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