Just Announced: Report On Fraud in the ITIN Department

Yesterday afternoon, the findings of the investigation of the ITIN Department of the IRS were released in a report that showed blatant and easily detectible fraud. The report finds that the “higher-ups” involved in the ITIN tax fraud cared more about processing as many applications as possible, as opposed to properly processing only acceptable ones. The inspector general “found an environment which discourages employees from detecting fraudulent applications,” George said in a statement.  Employees said there was no incentive to report fraud in the ITIN Department. The recent changes were, for lack of a less-hackneyed phrase, too little, too late.  Maybe a bug in an agency ear told someone the hammer was about to come down, so you shake things up, set new rules?  Too little, too late.

Republican politicians in Texas are calling for the resignation of the IRS commissioner, Doug Shulman.  This has happened under his watch. Whether or not he necessarily knew what was going on, he is responsible for the actions of the agency. Taxpayer fraud is something that the commissioner cannot necessarily control, but fraud within the agency begs the question of how much he actually knew and why he did little to nothing. He, and others, have been directly accused of  “aiding and abetting illegal immigrants.”

The inspector general’s report found that over 150 addresses were used over 1,000 times on over 15,000 applications. The report did not say whether or not any of these addresses were legitimate tax offices or residential homes. However, one address in Atlanta was used for almost 24,000 ITIN tax refunds in 2011, for a total amount of $46.4 million.

Stay tuned. This will only get more interesting throughout the summer and fall.