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by ectospheno 49 days ago
Owing tax each year instead of overpaying solves this problem. As long as it’s less than $1000 you won’t pay any interest or fees.
2 comments

That doesn't solve anything when the fraudster is filing a fake return. They are under no obligation to include all of your carefully chosen income and deductions that get you to $1000 owed.
What? In order to get a refund, that means you have to overpaid what you owe. It's pretty simple. If you are not putting in enough, the fraudster cannot get a refund as you still owe. Like, where is the break down? They would have to know how much you have paid, and then file so many deductions that it'd probably trigger an audit. If you file that many audits not with an account signing off of them, I could only imagine that would trigger an audit as well. Then again, the IRS has been beaten so badly that they barely have enough employees to function.
The fraudster claims that you installed energy efficient home improvements that qualify for the max $3,200 tax credit. Now that $1,000 in tax owed is a $2,200 refund. Maybe you get audited, but the IRS is certainly not auditing everyone who claims a tax credit.
Isn't that pretty much how the solar installation business operates?
Why would a scammer be discouraged by the possibility that the person they have chosen to steal from might get audited?
An audit would mean the refund is not automatically sent.
Nope. Audits don't block refunds, they are an asynchronous process.
I did owe the IRS money. I jokingly told the representative that whoever wants to pay the government more can be the real abirch.

From what I can tell they claimed a lot of exemptions and got a refund.