Taxpayer Dollars Lost to Known IRS Failures
ABUSE OF THE WEEK
ABUSE OF THE WEEK
ABUSE OF THE WEEK ABUSE OF THE WEEK
“AIA will continue to call out IRS hypocrisy, and TIGTA's findings show exactly why that work is needed. The IRS has known for years that the EITC is plagued by significant improper payments, yet longstanding vulnerabilities remain unresolved. These known deficiencies leave millions of taxpayer dollars at risk, and the accountability that taxpayers deserve is long overdue.”
A new Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) report found that the IRS failed to prevent roughly $213 million in improper Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) payments to individuals with nonwork Social Security numbers (SSNs), despite years of warnings about the program’s significant improper-payment problem.
EITC error rates have remained above 20% for the past two decades, making clear that this is hardly a new problem for the IRS. Yet persistent data and oversight failures continue to leave the agency unable to reliably identify and stop these improper payments before hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars go out the door.
Given the extensive resources and authority at the agency’s disposal, allowing a known vulnerability to persist year after year represents a serious failure of accountability and effective oversight. Taxpayers should be able to maintain confidence that the agency entrusted to administer the tax code is also safeguarding their hard-earned money.
Unfortunately, the IRS has repeatedly fallen short of that standard. While TIGTA has previously raised concerns regarding deficiencies in the data available to the IRS, these longstanding vulnerabilities remain unresolved. Leaving known deficiencies unaddressed—with millions of taxpayer dollars vulnerable to improper payments—is exactly the kind of abuse that undermines taxpayer confidence in the IRS.
When the IRS, an agency with profound authority over American taxpayers, fails to demonstrate the same level of care and accountability it demands of them, it’s bound to raise alarm bells about who is holding the agency itself accountable—and AIA will continue to demand answers and call out the IRS when it falls short.
Read the full report here.
If you, or someone you know, have experienced a specific IRS abuse and wish to flag the instance for potential inclusion in our Abuse of the Week series, call our dedicated Abuse Hotline, located in the Resources section of our homepage, or contact us with the details at info@irsaccountability.org.