Tag Archives: IRS

All About Agency Financial Statement Auditing

Every year, GAO audits selected agencies’ financial statements and the consolidated financial statements of the federal government. We’ve discussed the results of our federal government audit on the WatchBlog before, but we wanted to provide more context on the agency-level … Continue reading

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Identity Theft Tax Refund Fraud

Back in January, for Tax Identity Theft Awareness Week, we identified the two major types of tax-related identity fraud: refund fraud, and employment fraud. Earlier this week, we released a new report on identity theft tax refund fraud. In the … Continue reading

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The Risks of Virtual Currencies

In February 2014, the Mt. Gox virtual currency exchange filed for bankruptcy, stating that a security breach resulted in the loss of bitcoins worth more than $460 million at the time. This incident is one of many real-world illustrations of … Continue reading

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As Tax Day Arrives, How is IRS Managing the Filing Season?

Today is the deadline for filing federal individual income tax returns. By this point in time, if you needed to ask IRS questions about tax laws or your account, you’ve probably already been through the process at least once. If … Continue reading

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AskGAOLive: IRS Securing Financial and Taxpayer Data

What happens to all the personal data you send to IRS with your tax return? Join us for a chat about IRS controls to secure your data from threats, today at 2:00pm ET. You can send us your questions in … Continue reading

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Is College Part of Your Life Plan? Make Sure it’s Part of Your Tax Plan, Too

You probably already know that federal grants and loans can play an important role in making higher education more affordable. What you may not know is that the tax code also helps many people pay for college by encouraging savings, … Continue reading

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How Changes in Marriage and Work Impact Women’s Retirement Security

For Women’s History Month, we take stock of retirement security challenges facing women. Retirement and survivor benefits from Social Security and some employer-sponsored pensions have historically helped protect couples and surviving spouses in old age. Many of these benefits were … Continue reading

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An Introduction to GAO’s High Risk List

As an agency, we focus on improving the operations of a large, complex federal government that is responsible for trillions of dollars. In 1990, we started a program to report on government operations that we identified as “high risk” due … Continue reading

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Know the Types of Tax Identity Fraud

Tax filing season will begin soon and the Federal Trade Commission has named January 13-17th Tax Identity Theft Awareness Week to raise awareness and provide people with tips on how to protect themselves. We have done work on tax-related identity … Continue reading

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