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IRS Intensifies Crackdown Against Refund Fraud
Source:
tax-news.com
- Feb 8, 2013
by Mike Godfrey, Tax-News.com, Washington
08 February 2013
Continuing its enforcement push against tax refund fraud and identity theft, the United States Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has announced the results of a massive national sweep in recent weeks targeting identity theft suspects in 32 states and Puerto Rico, which involved 215 cities.
It was also confirmed that the coast-to-coast effort against 389 identity theft suspects led to 734 enforcement actions in January, including indictments, complaints and arrests. The effort comes on top of a growing identity theft effort that led to 2,400 other enforcement actions against identity thieves during fiscal year 2012.
The January crackdown, a joint effort with the Department of Justice and local US Attorneys’ offices, unfolded as the IRS opened the 2013 tax season. IRS Criminal Investigation expanded its efforts during January, pushing the total number of identity theft investigations to more than 1,460 since the start of the federal 2012 fiscal year on October 1, 2011.
“As tax season begins this year, we want to be clear that there is a heavy price to pay for perpetrators of refund fraud and identity theft,” said IRS Acting Commissioner Steven T. Miller. “We have aggressively stepped up our efforts to pursue and prevent refund fraud and identity theft, and we will continue to intensely focus on this area. This is part of a much wider effort underway for the 2013 tax season to stop fraud.”
The national effort with the Justice Department and other federal, state and local agencies is part of a larger, comprehensive identity theft strategy the IRS has embarked on that is focused on preventing, detecting and resolving identity theft cases as quickly as possible.
In addition to the criminal actions, IRS auditors and criminal investigators conducted a special compliance effort starting on January 28 to visit 197 money service businesses to help make sure these businesses are not assisting identity theft or refund fraud when they cash checks.
In addition to the national “sweeps” effort announced today, IRS work on identity theft and refund fraud continues to grow. For the 2013 filing season, the IRS has expanded these efforts to better protect taxpayers and help victims.
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http://www.tax-news.com/news/IRS_Intensifies_Crackdown_Against_Refund_Fraud____59645.html
Category: General Business
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