Actions Were Not Taken to Timely Strengthen Practitioner Priority Service Telephone Line Authentication Controls

What is the Practitioner Priority Service (PPS) line?

It's a dedicated phone line that authorized tax practitioners can use to get help for their clients. For example, tax practitioners can call the PPS line to request a client's tax return transcripts. 

Why did we do this audit?

IRS functional areas and TIGTA’s Office of Investigations alerted IRS management about a fraudulent scheme involving the PPS line. However, the IRS did little to stop it.

We conducted an evaluation to assess the policies and procedures implemented by the IRS to stop fraudsters from exploiting the PPS line.

What did we find?

Fraudsters used the PPS line to file more than 4,800 tax returns claiming nearly $462 million in refunds between August 2023 and April 2024. The IRS was able to detect and stop more than 4,200 of these claims.

However, the IRS failed to prevent 574 returns, resulting in estimated losses of more than $47 million.

The IRS was slow to stop the PPS fraud despite other IRS functional areas identifying it back in August 2021. The IRS did not put an adequate authentication control in place to combat identify theft and protect taxpayers' personal information involving the PPS line until April 2024.

For more of our findings:

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