Fraud Leaks in IRS Professional Line Led to Millions in Losses

IRS efforts to stop fraudsters from using a telephone line dedicated to tax practitioners failed to prevent 574 scam returns from being filed, resulting in more than $47 million in losses in a nine-month period ending in April, a government watchdog found.

The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration report issued Friday but dated Oct. 22 showed that the IRS reviewed over 4,800 returns filed by fraudsters between August 2023 and April 2024, totaling nearly $462 million in fraudulent claims. The agency detected and stopped 4,254 of those bad claims. The IRS previously had been alerted to the scams ...