IRS and Security Summit Partners Announce New Framework to Better Protect Taxpayers and Tax Revenue from Fraud
WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service and Security Summit partners today announced a restructuring of the public-private partnership designed to strengthen protections and enhance information sharing across the tax system. The change supports ongoing efforts to safeguard taxpayers from identity theft and related fraud.
“The Security Summit is a unique public-private partnership comprised of the IRS, state tax administrators, tax software companies, the tax professional community and the larger tax community. The goal of the Security Summit is to combat tax-related identity theft as a united front. Since its inception, the work of the Security Summit has helped protect millions of taxpayers against identity theft and prevented billions of dollars from being wrongly paid out to fraudsters.”
IRS Chief Executive Officer, Frank J. Bisignano notes that “the ongoing collaboration between the IRS and its Security Summit partners demonstrates the value of bringing private sector expertise and awareness to help improve how government works. For more than ten years, both parties have benefited from this arrangement and will continue to do so into the future”.
Jim Clifford, IRS Return Integrity & Compliance Services Director, is overseeing the program. He advises that “identity thieves continue to evolve, and so must we [IRS]. By aligning our work across every stage of the tax lifecycle and strengthening collaboration with partners, including the payroll industry, we are better positioned to stop fraud earlier and protect taxpayers and the nation’s revenue”.
What Changes are Included
New work groups have been created to implement these safeguards, including for Pre-Filing, Forecasting, Preventing, Detecting and Reporting, and Responding. These groups will effectively identify potential fraud early, flag suspicious payroll behavior and tax administration, which will include more interpersonal coordination with businesses’ payroll providers. Emerging schemes, and anticipation of any threats will be caught before becoming widespread. Strengthening safeguards in payroll systems and businesses’ data exchanges is another step these groups will take, as well as identifying real time fraud indicators, and the prompt sharing of the findings with the appropriate authorities and vendors. These new work groups will aid in coordinating responses to security incidents, and implement controls when breaches occur.
The IRS has announced that in addition to the new work groups, the Summit also works with the Coalition Against Scam and Scheme Threats (CASST), which focuses on time-sensitive threats, in both assessment and response. The goal is taxpayer fraud protection, while also protecting the treasury.
To learn more about the Security Summit, current Awareness Campaigns, or to learn about being a part of the Security Summit, you can visit the IRS site here.
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