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TIGTA Reports on Fraudulent Tax Refunds
The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) recently released some great news: the IRS issued $3.6 billion in fraudulent tax returns in 2011.

Um. I know, that’s a whopping amount of money that should not have been handed out. But it is a pleasant change of pace from the $5.2 billion reported for tax year 2010 to a $3.6 billion in 2011.

Despite the “improvement,” the IRS needs to step up its game and fix lingering problems identified by TIGTA. For example, a handful of tax refunds depositing to the same bank account should be a bright red flag. Apparently the IRS is color blind. But $3.6 billion is a little bit harder to ignore.

And the agency does seem to lose track of time when it comes to identify theft cases. TIGTA reported that it took the IRS about 312 days to resolve tax-related identity theft cases. That’s like an anniversary… So the million dollar – well, actually billion dollar – question is what will the IRS do about these numbers?