Pennsylvania Income Tax: Department Addresses Fraudulent Claims

The Pennsylvania Department of Revenue informs taxpayers that it is working to ensure that personal income tax refunds are paid to the correct taxpayer.

Last year the department instituted additional security measures to identify and intercept fraudulent refund filings and require additional identity validation steps before issuing refunds. In light of an emerging increase in suspicious filings in other states, the department is taking the following actions:

• the department will delay the payment of direct deposit refunds temporarily, while the potential impact of the situation in Pennsylvania is assessed;
• additional refund evaluation criteria are being built into the department’s identity validation program based on elements common among cases confirmed as fraud in other states; and

to facilitate diagnosis of fraud techniques currently in use, the department is participating in an information share among U.S. taxing agencies and Intuit, the company whose product has been used to transmit the recent fraudulent refund claims.

The department encourages taxpayers who used Internet-based tax filing programs last year to access their online accounts and determine whether returns they did not file are shown as filed under their Social Security numbers.

If a taxpayer suspects a notice or call concerning tax records is a scam, he or she may call the Pennsylvania Department of Revenue (717-787-8201) or the IRS (1-800-829-1040) to validate the contact. News, Pennsylvania Department of Revenue, February 6, 2015