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Full-Text Articles in Taxation-State and Local
E-Verify Can Stop Refund Fraud, Richard Thompson Ainsworth, Andrew Shact
E-Verify Can Stop Refund Fraud, Richard Thompson Ainsworth, Andrew Shact
Faculty Scholarship
Two issues in the current Washington debates need to be linked. E-Verify, the Internet-based database that allows employers to verify an employee’s work eligibility that is at the center of the immigration debate, is the ideal tool for stopping tax refund fraud. All that is needed is a digital signature of the E-Verify result, and the mandatory inscription of this signature on tax documents to make them self-authenticating.
The central features of this proposal have been made before. The technology it requires is tried and proven. The processes and procedure it advocates are in place and effectively deployed in foreign …
Refund Fraud? Real-Time Solution!, Richard Thompson Ainsworth
Refund Fraud? Real-Time Solution!, Richard Thompson Ainsworth
Faculty Scholarship
When seven million dependents vanished from the tax rolls in 1986 the IRS recovered three billion dollars in revenue. A simple enforcement measure was applied. Taxpayers were required to list the social security number (SSN) for any dependent they claimed on their tax return. Costing next to nothing to implement, the benefits of this enforcement action continue to this day.
A similar enforcement measure could be employed against refund fraud. Even though the solution is not as simple as that adopted in 1986, it is similar. The effort is worth making. The revenue loss is much larger. As before, the …