Refunds held

[JamesVincent]

Fraudulently filed tax returns through TurboTax has Kentucky and other states putting a temporary hold on processing all electronic returns. The Kentucky Department of Revenue anticipates just a few additional days to the refund process, with the goal of returning to normal processing late next week.

http://www.lex18.com/story/28046234/dep ... ic-returns

[JamesVincent]

Up to 18 states are reporting significant upticks in fraudulent activity and there may be a common thread: tax preparation software.

Individual State Departments of Revenue are loathe to name names but have been quick to point the finger away from their own systems.

The State of Alabama Department of Revenue released a statement yesterday about fraud concerns, saying only, “The fraudulent filings originate from data compromised through a third-party commercial tax preparation software process and were detected through ADOR’s fraud detection systems.” They were quick to assure taxpayers, however, that “[o]ur systems have not been compromised.” Just two weeks into tax season, however, the number of suspicious returns in the state has already hit 16,000, all of which were “filed suspected of fraud from the third-party commercial tax preparation software.”

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphilli ... -concerns/

[notorial dissent]

Well, gee!!! What a surprise-NOT!!! They were all in such an all consuming rush to get to electronic filing, that none of them stopped to consider, that the filing software only reports what it is given, and if you give it bad -false- information, then gosh awollee gee it reports a bad -fraudulent- return, and the beauty of doing it electronically is that it can all be done so very quickly and efficiently, and unless the review software is particularly good, and I'm not sure there is such a thing, or there is some kind of human overview, the refunds go through at the speed of light, literally.

The only saving grace is that most of the old line TP's were too computer illiterate, as well as illiterate in general, to do it, but I suspect that there are more than enough in the younger up and coming generations to make up for it. When the 1099-OID fraud started, I figured we had started to move on to the next generation.