[nsxwolf]

Why would free filing increase fraud? It's always been free to file if you do it yourself.

Can't it be that there's just more at stake with the Federal return in terms of total dollars, and far more tax deductions available?

[gaadd33]

If it cost $10 per filing that would be a huge up front cost for someone, especially if it turns out many of their fake returns are invalidated en mass. It's pretty hard to file several thousand fake returns with plausible data (esp if you have last years or several years ago data) by hand, if you are putting up that much work you might as well just prepare people's taxes in a legitimate way.

[secalex]

Free filing is going to increase fraud since $10 means the attackers need enough credit card numbers to not set off Intuit's or the payment networks' fraud systems. That probably means almost a 1:1 ratio between returns and working CCs, with Intuit having the obvious option of checking zip codes against the returns.

[TrevorJ]

e-fraud is about minimal investment and casting a wide net. Even a few dollars of cost to file means there is lower hanging fruit out there.