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Comment by billhendricksjr | Hacker News Reader

Despite my Jonathan Swift inspired title, it is unfortunately not satire. Here's an abridged list of criteria that caused us to flag the 2 returns I mentioned as obviously fraudulent:

- Mailing address on account was bogus per Google Maps

- 1st credit card charge attempt failed, 2nd one passed. Name on credit card did not match name on account (although both CCs passed Stripe's zip code and CVV checks)

- Taxpayer claimed to live and work in California, yet W-2 didn't have any CA state tax info (boxes 15-20) populated

- Every value on the W-2 was a whole number (no pennies)

There's more, but I don't want to give away our entire algorithm, which could help thieves navigate our system and others

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I hope you're not serious, Bill. I really don't want you to go to jail. :)

The government is slow to act, that's often a good thing to keep it from reacting quickly where some discussion or just delay is the wiser course. I get the impression the IRS has proposals to add these types of identity checks, but the inherent delays in decision-making mean any real change is years away. Does anyone know of a plan for the IRS to improve validation of refund requests?

Thanks for your concern :). I was motivated to post this after 8 years of frustration at IRS and other's failure to act.

I've contacted IRS numerous times on this subject and they've indicated to no concrete plan and timeline to act decisively.

In their defense - there are some quick and easy checks they could implement tomorrow, but the most definitive one is would be to check the W-2 the taxpayer enters vs. the W-2 they receive from the taxpayer's employer. The problem with this is - IRS doesn't receive the W-2 from the employer until after most refunds are issued. When they've pressed for it, small business owners and payroll providers push back hard, throwing out the "overreaching government" accusation.

"Every value on the W-2 was a whole number (no pennies)"

Don't lots of the tax forms say 'round to the nearest dollar'.

If you're filling out your return by hand (1040EZ, 1040A, or 1040) and doing the math yourself they do tell you to round.

However the input forms (W-2, 1099s, etc.) VERY rarely contain ALL round numbers. After analyzing thousands of returns, I can assure this is a yellow, if not red, flag.

Combine that with the other flags I mentioned, and several I didn't, and I would bet my life that the returns I'm eluding to are fraud. Clearly I'm betting my and my company's reputation, so I can assure you I'm very confident in my assessment.

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