Our tax Accountant told us how the fraud works. When a person files their tax return, the first one to get in the IRS system gets the refund. IRS doesn’t even check the W-2 information for “validity” until months later after folks have received a “refund”. Very hard to find the frauds as they quickly change addresses and they have refunds put a green dot card or loaded on a VISA card (not deposited into checking, etc).
Just another reason to make sure you don’t have a refund coming but rather, owe at tax time. I don’t make interest-free loans, especially to Uncle Sugar.