It's Tax Season, and States Are Battling Bogus Requests for Refunds

Stateline: Last year during tax season, Utah discovered that about 8,000 state income tax returns were filed with fake IDs, which could have cost the state $11 million in bogus refunds. The fraud discovery precipitated a weekslong halt to processing taxpayers’ returns and an intense investigation that stopped all but $17,000 in false refunds.

The scam sought to take advantage of the consumer-friendly service used by Utah and many other states of sending taxpayers their refunds quickly via pre-paid debit cards that could immediately — and untraceably — be used like cash.

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