The joint effort comes as the number of identity theft cases confirmed by the IRS increased by a significant amount in the 2024 filing season.
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced a new coalition with members of the tax industry on Friday seeking to counter the growth of scams threatening tax systems and taxpayers.
The new “Coalition Against Scam and Scheme Threats” (CASST) initiative was convened at the request of IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel.
It will “work to expand outreach and education about emerging scams, develop new approaches to identify potentially fraudulent returns at the point of filing and create infrastructure improvements to protect taxpayers as well as federal, state and industry tax systems,” the IRS said in an Aug. 16 press release.
The agency has reported a rising number of identity theft cases. In the 2024 filing season, the IRS confirmed 15,242 instances of fraudulent returns, indicating they were filed by scammers to claim refunds owed to other people. The agency prevented the issuance of more than $180 million in refunds related to these returns.
The 2024 number was more than 20 percent higher than the confirmed identity theft cases during the 2023 season.
Additionally, the IRS’s Identity Theft Victims Assistance unit received 294,138 reports of identity theft in fiscal year 2023, according to a report by the Taxpayer Advocate Service. This is the second highest in five years and more than 217 percent up compared to fiscal year 2019.
The CASST task force will “better protect taxpayers from falling prey to unscrupulous actors by leveraging multilateral relationships across the tax ecosystem to minimize the filing of fraudulent tax returns,” the IRS stated.
In addition to the IRS, other members of the joint effort include the Federation of Tax Administrators which represents state tax agencies, national tax professional organizations, and leading tech firms operating in the tax industry.
Groups like the American Coalition for Taxpayer Rights and the National Association of Computerized Tax Processors have announced their support for the program. In total, the joint effort has the backing of more than 60 different groups from the private sector.
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