Author granted license

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International

Document Type

Working Paper

Publication Date

4-9-2013

Language

en-US

Abstract

Two issues in the current Washington debates need to be linked. E-Verify, the Internet-based database that allows employers to verify an employee’s work eligibility that is at the center of the immigration debate, is the ideal tool for stopping tax refund fraud. All that is needed is a digital signature of the E-Verify result, and the mandatory inscription of this signature on tax documents to make them self-authenticating.

The central features of this proposal have been made before. The technology it requires is tried and proven. The processes and procedure it advocates are in place and effectively deployed in foreign jurisdictions, notably in VAT jurisdictions enforcing against VAT fraud.

The heart of this linkage (the E-Verify/refund fraud linkage) is numerical. At least $5.2 billion in annual revenues are being lost through refund fraud – the cost for businesses to implement a fully mandated E-Verify system is $2.7 billion. If E-Verify solves refund fraud, there are funds available for a business credit with a considerable amount of money left over.

The $5.2 billion figure comes from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) who found that in Processing Year 2011, identity theft cost the US taxpayer in excess of $5.2 billion in undetected fraudulent tax refunds, and estimated $21 billion in losses over five years. The $2.7 billion figure comes from a Bloomberg Report for the same time period indicating that a fully mandated E-Verify system for all employers would cost $2.7 billion (almost all of it in training expenses related to system implementation and worker appeals).

Find on SSRN

Share

COinS
 
 

To view the content in your browser, please download Adobe Reader or, alternately,
you may Download the file to your hard drive.

NOTE: The latest versions of Adobe Reader do not support viewing PDF files within Firefox on Mac OS and if you are using a modern (Intel) Mac, there is no official plugin for viewing PDF files within the browser window.