Tax Complexity and Fraud Prevention Review Act
- Bill Number
- S. 5073
- Origin Chamber
- Senate
- Congress
- 119th Congress, Session 2
- Policy Area
- Taxation
- Status
- Introduced
- Latest Action
- 2026-07-22: Read twice and referred to the Committee on Finance.
- Last Updated
- 2026-09-28T20:23:57Z
AI-Generated Summary
Purpose This legislation requires the Secretary of the Treasury to submit annual reports to Congress detailing efforts to identify, prevent, and resolve tax fraud. It also addresses the separate requirement for analyzing sources of complexity in federal tax laws.
Key Provisions
- Fraud Prevention Reports: The Secretary must submit an annual report to the House Ways and Means Committee and Senate Finance Committee within 12 months of enactment and each year thereafter.
- The report must describe IRS and Security Summit efforts during the most recent tax filing season, including information sharing, guidelines, threat analyses, and recommendations for preventing fraud such as first-person fraud and stolen identity refund fraud.
- It must cover interactions with tax filing providers that do not participate in the Security Summit.
- It must include numerical data on identified fraud by tax form type and filing method, as well as total amounts of fraudulent refund claims (both those paid in error and those stopped before payment).
- Redacted data must be posted on the IRS public website.
- Complexity Analysis: The bill states that the annual report required from the National Taxpayer Advocate under section 7803(c)(2)(B) of the Internal Revenue Code does not satisfy the separate analysis requirement under section 4022 of the Internal Revenue Service Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998.
- Definition: "Secretary" refers to the Secretary of the Treasury or delegate.
Significant Changes to Existing Law
- Creates a new, detailed annual reporting obligation focused on tax fraud prevention and inter-entity collaboration.
- Clarifies that one existing taxpayer advocate report cannot substitute for the broader complexity analysis mandated by the 1998 Act, effectively requiring distinct efforts on tax law complexity.
Potential Impacts
- Government Agencies: Increases administrative workload for the IRS and Treasury Department in collecting, analyzing, and reporting detailed fraud and complexity data.
- Citizens: May lead to improved detection and prevention of tax fraud, potentially reducing erroneous refunds and enhancing taxpayer protections.
- International Relations: No direct effects identified in the legislation.
Main Stakeholders Affected
- Internal Revenue Service and Treasury Department.
- Congressional committees (House Ways and Means and Senate Finance).
- Members of the Security Summit and tax filing providers.
- Taxpayers subject to fraud risks or affected by tax law complexity.
Notable Legal, Constitutional, or Political Implications
- Strengthens congressional oversight of IRS operations through mandatory, detailed reporting.
- Promotes transparency by requiring public release of redacted fraud data.
- Reinforces the distinction between different statutory reporting duties without altering underlying tax administration authority.
This summary was generated by AI and may contain inaccuracies. Refer to the official source document for the authoritative text.
Sponsor
Cosponsors (1)
Recent Actions
- 2026-07-22: Read twice and referred to the Committee on Finance.
- 2026-07-22: Introduced in Senate
Bill Versions
- Tax Complexity and Fraud Prevention Review Act — issued 2026-07-22 — PDF (5 pages)