IRS Taxpayer Advocate Service Still Flooded With Refund Cases

The IRS’s Taxpayer Advocate Service continues to be overwhelmed with cases because of an agency program that freezes taxpayer refunds when it detects potentially false wages or withholding.

“Those case receipts have quadrupled over the past three years from about 20,000 cases in 2017 to about 90,000 this year,” acting National Taxpayer Advocate Bridget Roberts said Nov. 14 at an American Institute of CPAs conference.

The Taxpayer Advocate Service in past reports has said many taxpayers are incorrectly targeted by the IRS’s Pre-Refund Wage Verification Program.

The false positive rate for the agency’s non-identity theft refund ...