IRS Question

[Mme. Defarge]

In early April I received IRS Letter 5071C which instructed me to verify my identity in order to receive my 2021 federal tax refund. On irs.gov I was routed to a link for ID.me, which I could not get to work. A few days later I read an article in the Washington Post about a congressional investigation looking into the ID.me face-scan company. Then, a day or so later, my federal tax refund was deposited into my checking account.

Does anyone have any knowledge of this situation or have advice on whether or not I should still try to verify my I.D. with the IRS?

[Lochloosa]

1. This may help.

https://www.irs.gov/identity-theft-fraud-scams/identity-verification-for-irs-letter-recipients

[SWBTATTReg]

2. I have heard of this, the verifying of IDs via the IRS. Apparently this is in response to all of

the fake tax returns being filed by scammers, so in a way, this is to protect us. Seems like your problem went away, when your return was indeed deposited (I hope w/ the correct dollar amount, etc.).

[in2herbs]

3. I got a refund this year -- by mail -- and did not have to provide any ID. My return is

done by a CPA. Maybe the IRS is just flagging returns done by individuals???

I had read about the headaches on getting a refund. Here's my story: I mailed on the last day allowed (Monday) and by the next Wednesday my refund check was in the mail box.

[MissB]

4. I did the id.me thing this year

It isn't scammy, but YMMV on the comfort level of using a 3rd party to verify your identity.

I didn't want to get into the black hole of refund status if I had to send in a paper return. We had an unusually large refund from the feds this year, and it would've sucked to wait months, year, whatever to get it.

So I did the process with ID.me. I couldn't even submit the forms through turbotax unless I filled in the IRS 6-digit code that I ended up getting from the IRS.gov site after going through the process. My state will reject returns if the feds haven't accepted my return.

My fed refund took a week. My state refund took 3 days.

[Cicada]

5. If you got the full refund ignore the IRS request

[Mme. Defarge]

6. That's my strong inclination.

Do you have an authoritative source for that opinion?