After 32 years of IRS work — and more than $100 million in resolved tax debt — I've seen just about every version of the problem you're dealing with. I'm Darrin Mish, a tax attorney in Tampa. Here's what you should know.
According to a recent story by Adam Shaw for Fox News, the government watchdog known as Citizens Against Government Waste has confronted the government about continued delays with the rollout of a tax return anti-fraud program designed to replace the Electronic Fraud Detection System that has been around since the early 90’s because the EFDS continues to pose too many problems related to time waste and security. It allowed continued losses of more than $458 billion in tax revenues from failing to detect tax return fraud over a three-year period. The current EFDS upkeep also costs more than $18 million per year.
Although the government started working on the new system, known as the Return Review Program, in 2009, a beta test revealed that it prevented the IRS from collecting $313 million because it was unable to find all of the fraudulent returns in the test. As a result, the redesign has forced the government to spend more than its estimated budget and push the release date to at least 2022. Citizens Against Government Waste have recommended to the IRS that instead of waiting for a government anti-fraud solution, it should invest in an existing thriving private sector one.
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