Post by Logan on Jun 10, 2016 15:58:05 GMT -6
PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Nearly 60,000 income tax refunds, some of them filed four months ago, are still to be paid by the state, mostly because of a completely new computer system and the high number of returns its fraud detection software has identified as suspicious, state revenue officials told a House Committee Thursday.
Out of an expected 446,000 state tax refunds for this year, about 59,217 are still to be processed, Revenue Department Director Robert S. Hull and Acting Tax Administrator Neena Savage told the House Committee on Oversight. About 25,000 of them were tagged for special review, by a human being, for potential fraud. They said the department hoped to have all refunds processed and paid by mid-July at the latest.
The 25,000 potentially fraudulent refunds are about twice last year’s 12,758. But Hull cautioned that this year’s number represented suspected fraud; further reviews could reveal many of those may have been due to innocent mistakes, such as transposed numbers in Social Security numbers, rather than fraudulent intent.
The refund delays prompted a 19-percent increase in the number of calls and emails to the department from taxpayers this year, Savage said. That created a cycle of delay because the department had to redirect staff in to investigate those complaints, which left fewer staffers to review returns, which caused more delays and then more calls.
Read more: www.providencejournal.com/news/20160609/house-hears-testimony-on-delayed-tax-returns
Out of an expected 446,000 state tax refunds for this year, about 59,217 are still to be processed, Revenue Department Director Robert S. Hull and Acting Tax Administrator Neena Savage told the House Committee on Oversight. About 25,000 of them were tagged for special review, by a human being, for potential fraud. They said the department hoped to have all refunds processed and paid by mid-July at the latest.
The 25,000 potentially fraudulent refunds are about twice last year’s 12,758. But Hull cautioned that this year’s number represented suspected fraud; further reviews could reveal many of those may have been due to innocent mistakes, such as transposed numbers in Social Security numbers, rather than fraudulent intent.
The refund delays prompted a 19-percent increase in the number of calls and emails to the department from taxpayers this year, Savage said. That created a cycle of delay because the department had to redirect staff in to investigate those complaints, which left fewer staffers to review returns, which caused more delays and then more calls.
Read more: www.providencejournal.com/news/20160609/house-hears-testimony-on-delayed-tax-returns