the endless war is not going well.
by 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 research
the fraudsters of the world continue to see the u.s. treasury as a bountiful chest of riches just waiting to be plundered.
it doesn’t take much. a taxpayer’s name, a social security number, a bank account number, maybe an email address, a phone number and a little luck.
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the irs is used to this. it knows what to do about it.
it just doesn’t do it very well.
2.8 million suspensions
the irs analyzes all tax returns claiming refunds through a variety of filters, models and rules that flag possible identity theft and non-identity theft fraud. when the process detects something suspicious, it suspends the return and turns the cases over to the taxpayer protection program.
this happened 2.8 million times this year as of april 17. as of april 18, 627,000 taxpayers had authenticated their returns. another 308,000 were released after confirmation by other means.
that left almost 2 million returns mired somewhere between limbo and hell – but only for a couple of years.
the number of cases referred to the tpp increased an astonishing 33 percent this year.
a lot of the increase may reflect an increase in breaches against individuals and businesses, not to mention the usual variety of phishing scams.
a lot of others were flagged simply because a taxpayer had claimed the fuel tax credit, which should have been verified under the non-identity theft refund fraud program. so some 420,306 taxpayers received “letters 5747c, potential identity theft during original processing – tac auth only” forms.
that number reflects an increase of no less than 264 percent.
better a coin flip
another part of the problem is an absurdly high false detection rate of 54 percent. in other words, a coin flip would do better than the mighty (mighty old) irs computer system.
stats for non-identity theft refund fraud aren’t much better. the number of returns flagged was up 352 percent from last year, a total of 2.6 million. but 2 million of them were released by april 17, 2024.
part of the initial problem was a delay by the social security administration in submitting w-2 data to the irs. returns filed before the data came in were often flagged as possibly fraudulent. so early returns meant late delayed refunds.
despite the high false detection rate, the irs sends hapless taxpayers just one notice that their returns have been suspended. if the taxpayer understands the problem and what needs to be done, he or she must
- call the tpp toll-free phone number or
- use an online application at irs.gov or
- visit a taxpayer assistance center.
if the taxpayers fails to take one of those actions, or fails to succeed in doing so, the return remains suspended, the refund unpaid … like, forever.
call wait times for the tpp also take, like, forever … an average of 20 minutes for the 16 percent of calls that actually get answered.
calls to tacs for appointments might be answered within four minutes, but only for 48 percent of calls.
the refund hotline? only six minutes on hold, but only 1 percent of calls answered.
but wait, there’s more
in many cases, the irs issues a “refund” to a fraudster. taxpayers who manage to find this out and learn what to do about it have to submit a form 14039, identity theft affidavit, and a paper tax return.
and in an average of 675 days, they may receive their refund.
that’s right – nearly two years.
part of the delay is because the irs moved many id theft personnel to the service’s main toll-free lines, dramatically reducing wait times there. wait times there were reduced to under five minutes.
which, when you think about it, is a lot less than 675 days.
which, when you think about it, signifies absolutely nothing.
but still: 675 days? that’s a mighty long time for the millions of taxpayers who really need that refund.