Other steps include new verification codes, additional reviews, and a partnership between the IRS, state tax agencies, and the private-sector tax industry to fight fraud. The data also showed a nearly 50% drop in the number of fraudulent tax returns processed by IRS. That will include increased information sharing between state and federal agencies, as well as between tax industry leaders. The time that it takes to implement some of these security measures means that tax refunds take more time to process. That, of course, brings us to today's Fix The Tax Code Friday question:Should the federal government continue to take steps to delay tax refunds to taxpayers if it means that tax fraud is also slowed down?

Source: Forbes January 27, 2017 18:38 UTC