Tax Refund Fraud. We’ve seen this happening across the nation in a variety of communities. The fraudster demographic is also quite diverse: some perpetrators are operating from within experienced fraud rings, some are regular street criminals (or inmates), some are even IRS insiders.
Most people are probably aware of individual refund fraud, which involves the filing of a false tax return using a stolen Social Security Number in hopes of obtaining a refund. Many of these schemes are built upon the idea that the IRS doesn’t bat an eye if the requested refund is small enough. And fraudsters can get pretty rich if they file in bulk.
But did you know that the same thing is happening with EIN numbers? An Employer Identification Number is used to identify business accounts. People steal them and obtain them fraudulently just like they do with social security numbers. The statistics are staggering: “277,624 stolen EINs used to report false income and withholding on 752,656 tax returns with potentially fraudulent refunds issued totaling more than $2.2 billion” (2011 numbers). The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) released a report this week asking the IRS to do more to prevent EIN refund fraud.