The Internal Revenue Service’s approach to issuing tax identification numbers to non-U.S. residents let fraud go undetected, according to a report by the agency’s inspector general.
The IRS emphasized getting applications processed while creating an environment that discouraged employees from stopping potentially fraudulent applications, the report said today. It said 15,795 numbers were assigned to a single address in Phoenix, and $52.5 million in tax refunds associated with nonresidents’ numbers were sent in 2011 to just four addresses in Atlanta.
