The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) said the IRS was ineffective in its efforts to stop a scheme that involved scammers calling the enforcer priority service phone line, resulting in an estimated loss of more than $47 million. a report Dated October 22 (TIGTA Rep’t No. 2025-IE-R001).

The report stated that the fraud took place from August 12, 2023 to April 16, 2024, during which time the fraudsters submitted 4,828 tax returns and requested refunds of approximately $462 million. TIGTA said the IRS detected 4,254 fraudulent claims but did not stop 574 returns.

TIGTA said it issued an alert on February 8, 2024, demanding that the IRS scheme immediately stop the fraud due to the failure of IRS management to take action. The IRS began using additional identity verification checks on April 8, 2024; The partially redacted report did not explain how the plan worked, it said.

Even after TIGTA and IRS functional units notified the IRS of the fraud in August 2021, “the IRS did little to stop this fraud,” the report said. This inaction caused TIGTA to evaluate IRS policies and procedures “to prevent fraudsters from abusing the PPS phone line,” the report states.

TIGTA recommended the IRS:

• Provide and train assistants on secure access digital identity dashboard.

• Establish a Service-wide process whereby advanced analytics and matching with IRS-sourced information proactively identifies a fraud, with representatives from key functional areas responsible for quickly reviewing and addressing emerging or ongoing fraud schemes.

• Restrict access to any secure object store (SOR) identities associated with fraudulent activity; And

• Develop processes and procedures to ensure timely restriction of fake SOR IDs.

IRS management agreed with three of the four recommendations and partially agreed with the proposal to restrict SOR IDs.

— To comment on this article or suggest an idea for another, contact Martha Wagoner at: [email protected].