Don't blame e-file for identity theft, IRS says

Tax refund fraud committed by inputting other taxpayers' personal information into the Internal Revenue Service's popular e-file system isn't responsible for the growing rate of tax fraud, IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman testified at a House panel last week, according to Next Gov.

Shulman said part of the reason they are not linked is due to the fact that that paper filers and e-filers must submit the same information and a review of identity theft-related tax fraud conducted by the Government Accountability Office also concluded that there is no evidence that a surge in tax fraud is linked to "breaches in IRS' physical or online security," the article said.

During the 2010 tax season in which 71 percent of all returns were filed online, the number of tax fraud cases topped 250,000 from 50,000 in 2008.