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 ensure the annual report includes information regarding individuals identified as part of its criminal investigations that perpetrated tax refund fraud while incarcerated by either filing tax returns in their own name or using the identities of other individuals.

The Commissioner, Wage and Investment Division, should clearly define a prisoner for the purposes of determining prisoner fraud as well as for the annual report to Congress.

The Commissioner, Wage and Investment Division, should evaluate the effect of the IRS's decision to limit the verification of prisoner tax returns to only those filed using the SSN of full year prisoners on the IRS's identification of potentially fraudulent tax returns.