The IRS reported that in 2011 they sent out 4 billion dollars in fraudulent tax returns to individuals who had filed using stolen social security numbers.


The IRS reported that in 2011 they sent out 4 billion dollars in fraudulent tax returns to individuals who had filed using stolen social security numbers and taxpayer identification numbers.

Among the ones that failed to be detected as frauds, 655 went to the same Lithuanian address, and 343 were mailed to a single address in Shanghai.

Not all of the fraudulent payments were sent internationally. In the US the bulk of them went to Miami. Many also ended up in Chicago, Atlanta, Houston, and Detroit.

The report also stressed that since then, the IRS has gotten significantly better at spotting and stopping returns that have been filed under other people’s social security numbers.

Since then they say they’ve caught over12 million bogus returns before the checks were cut and mailed, amounting to about 40 billion dollars.

The IRS also said that they’ve become increasingly watchful of filers using Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers.

An audit revealed that nearly 2 thousand of the ID numbers had been issued to a single household in Washington state. In 2011, 194 returns totaling over 500 thousand dollars were sent there.