The IRS showed more interest in processing applications for a taxpayer identification number than in vetting those requests for fraud, according to a federal audit publicly released Wednesday.
The revenue service’s review of applications for Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers (ITINs) was lacking and there was no reason to believe the IRS uncovered as much fraud as it could, the Treasury Department’s inspector general for tax administration found.
Russell George, the tax administration inspector general, said that those findings were “troubling.” ITINs are given to non-U.S. citizens, who are ineligible for a Social Security Number, for tax purposes, and can even be used by people not eligible to be in the United States.
The inspector general “found an environment which discourages employees from detecting fraudulent applications,” George said in a statement.
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