As tax-related identity theft and fraudulent filings continue to pose challenges, the IRS has ramped up its efforts to detect and prevent improper refunds. The agency expanded its use of identity theft filters for the 2024 filing season, implementing 282 filters to flag suspicious tax returns for additional scrutiny before refunds are issued.
The scale of these efforts is substantial. By February 2024, the IRS had flagged nearly 2 million tax returns—totaling $16.5 billion in refunds—for additional review. Of these, they confirmed over 15,000 tax returns as fraudulent, stopping $180.5 million in fraudulent refunds from being distributed.
With the IRS implementing stricter fraud detection and identity verification protocols, businesses must take proactive steps to ensure tax identity accuracy. This includes verifying taxpayer identification numbers (TINs), validating tax identity data before filing, and maintaining accurate records to reduce the risk of rejected returns, audits, and penalties.
Does your company need TIN matching?
Picture a world where onboarding mistakes are caught before they enter your system, your team isn’t bogged down by tedious rework and data changes no longer throw your workflow into chaos. TINCheck is designed to help teams accomplish just that, offering a tool that verifies TINs in real-time and in bulk to ensure ongoing compliance with IRS regulations. This offers teams the following benefits:
Eliminate onboarding mistakes
One of the biggest challenges in tax identity management is ensuring that new vendor, contractor, or employee information is correct at the point of entry. TINCheck instantly verifies TINs, EINs, and SSNs against IRS and SSA databases—so errors are caught and corrected before they enter your system. This prevents costly corrections down the line and ensures smooth onboarding of vendors, contractors, and employees.
Reduce administrative burden and maintain accurate records
Tax identity information isn’t static. Businesses change names, individuals change statuses, and data errors accumulate over time. When tax forms are rejected due to invalid TINs, finance and compliance teams are forced to chase down corrections, reissue documents, and submit amended filings.
Manual rework is a productivity killer—and teams often spend countless hours correcting these errors, reprocessing incorrect forms and managing back-and-forth communications with vendors. TINCheck’s bulk TIN matching capabilities allow businesses to proactively validate large sets of taxpayer data on an ongoing basis, keeping your records accurate year-round and preventing outdated information from causing disruptions.
Strengthen fraud prevention with advanced security screening
Fraudulent tax identity schemes are on the rise, with bad actors exploiting weaknesses in verification processes. Cybercriminals, identity thieves, and unscrupulous entities use stolen or falsified taxpayer information to commit fraud, launder money and evade compliance regulations—leaving businesses vulnerable.
TINCheck provides a proactive defense against these threats by integrating advanced security screening into the verification process. By cross-referencing taxpayer information against 30+ global watchlists, including the Death Master File (DMF) and the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctions list, TINCheck helps businesses detect fraudulent identities before they lead to costly consequences.
The critical role of death record verification in fraud prevention was demonstrated in a five-month U.S. Department of the Treasury pilot program, which leveraged the Social Security Administration’s Full Death Master File to prevent or recover over $31 million in fraudulent and improper payments.
Avoid costly IRS penalties
Failing to file accurate information returns or missing deadlines can result in hefty penalties from the IRS. The penalties apply to each incorrect or late-filed information return and payee statement, meaning even small errors can quickly add up. For small businesses, these fines can reach up to $1.3 million per year.
To avoid B-notices, backup withholding and potential audits, businesses must validate TIN and name combinations before filing Forms 1099, W-9, W-8, and other required tax documents. TINCheck continuously monitors and updates its connections to authoritative source systems, including the IRS, Social Security Administration (SSA), and the Department of the Treasury. This ensures that businesses always have access to the most up-to-date and accurate validation results for compliance.
Stay ahead of compliance challenges with TIN matching
As the IRS intensifies its efforts to detect identity fraud and enforce tax compliance, businesses cannot afford to take a reactive approach to taxpayer verification. By integrating TINCheck into your compliance workflow, businesses can protect their bottom line and optimize their resources all while remaining in good standing with the IRS—no more surprises, no more penalties.
Proactively verify taxpayer information today and build a stronger, more compliant financial foundation for your business. Get started today with TINCheck.