Look, identity theft happens. It sucks, but in 2015 its a fact of life. I have a client now who we just caught it on, fortunately for her, we got her through the ID theft process and although it will be a PITA for a while, no financial harm done.
The problem is that until the IRS decides to, or is allowed to hold up refunds pending some verification of claimed withholdings early in the filing season, its only going to get worse. The problem is that submission deadline of W-2's to IRS and SSA doesn't happen until March 31. Even THEN you have employers who are late and not only that it takes time to post the information. Realistically there is no point where by April 15th you can have a matching system for wages and withholdings.
Given that, tax returns are a prime target for people to make phony refund claims using fake numbers so long as they get identifying info about the taxpayers. That's not an Intuit problem, that's not an IRS problem, its a systemic problem.
The problem is that until the IRS decides to, or is allowed to hold up refunds pending some verification of claimed withholdings early in the filing season, its only going to get worse. The problem is that submission deadline of W-2's to IRS and SSA doesn't happen until March 31. Even THEN you have employers who are late and not only that it takes time to post the information. Realistically there is no point where by April 15th you can have a matching system for wages and withholdings.
Given that, tax returns are a prime target for people to make phony refund claims using fake numbers so long as they get identifying info about the taxpayers. That's not an Intuit problem, that's not an IRS problem, its a systemic problem.