Actions Need to be Taken to Ensure Compliance with Prisoner Reporting Requirements and Improve Identification of Prisoner Returns

The Commissioner, Wage and Investment Division, should develop a master list of prison institutions nationwide for use in verifying Federal Bureau of Prisons and State Departments of Corrections compliance with legislative reporting requirements.

The Commissioner, Wage and Investment Division, should evaluate the inclusion of valid SSNs associated with records in the Prisoner Mismatch File for use in identifying prisoner tax returns to assign an indicator and evaluate for fraud potential.

The Commissioner, Wage and Investment Division, should, in coordination with the Department of Treasury's Office of Tax Policy, consider a legislative proposal to allow the IRS to provide mismatch records to the Federal Bureau of Prisons and State Departments of Corrections in an effort to resolve the mismatch in future submissions.

The Commissioner, Wage and Investment Division, should expand the communication strategy for the Blue Bag Program to ensure that all Federal Bureau of Prisons and State Departments of Corrections institutions are made aware of the program.

The Commissioner, Wage and Investment Division, should include information in the annual report to Congress on all tax returns, including identity theft tax returns, the IRS identifies through its fraud detection processes as being filed using a prisoner SSN.