Reducing Tax Identity Theft by Uncovering and Securing Risk Gateways in the E-Filing Process

摘要

This paper investigate whether the increasing adoption of electronic tax filing technologies has inadvertently resulted in corresponding growth in Tax Identity Theft. Data was extracted from Identity Theft complain reports maintained by U.S. government agencies. Our results indicated that, after controlling for general Identity Theft, number of Individual Tax Returns, and Total Refunds, Tax Identity Theft was still positively associated with E-filing and this relationship was mediated by Self-e-filing and Direct Deposit adoption. These findings suggest that the key risk gateways in the Tax Identity Theft process are at self-e-filing and at the direct deposit points.