When the IRS kicks off the 2020 tax filing season, taxpayers in selected locations will…
The IRS established the Taxpayer Protection Program (TPP) to proactively identify and prevent the processing of identity theft tax returns and assist taxpayers whose identities are used to file such returns. However, as part of the TPP process to identify potential identity theft returns, many legitimate taxpayer returns are also selected. When this happens, it is considered to be a “false positive.” Taxpayers selected by this process must contact the IRS to authenticate their identity and confirm that they filed the return so that the TPP can issue their refund.
One of the following letters will be sent to the taxpayer advising them to contact TPP to authenticate their identity:
To detect and prevent Identity Theft(IDT) refund fraud, IRS has developed tools and programs, including:
Of the 650,000 filers who responded to TPP notification letters last year, 450,000 (69 percent) attempted remote authentication—online or by phone—whereas 200,000 (31 percent) claimed to be victims of Identity Theft (IDT) who had not filed the selected returns. To pass remote authentication, filers must first complete “identity proofing” by providing basic identifying information such as their names and dates of birth. Next, they are asked to answer knowledge-based authentication questions obtained from a third-party provider. Examples of authentication questions are “Who is your mortgage lender?” or “Which of the following is your previous address?” If filers pass knowledge-based remote authentication, then IRS releases those filers’ returns for further processing before issuing refunds. If filers cannot pass, IRS will not issue a refund unless those filers pass in-person authentication or IRS receives information return documents from third parties, such as W-2s, that match filers’ return data.
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