The PATH act was put in place to stop one type of tax fraud where tax thieves would file false tax returns claiming income from jobs that did not exist and claim EIC and/or ATOC. If they filed early enough, the IRS would pay the refund without question because the supporting W-2's do not need to be filed by the employer until Feb 1 and then it takes several more days to get in to the IRS system.
The PATH act told the IRS not to process any tax return that had EIC or ATOC until Feb 15 to allow the IRS to match the tax return with the W-2 that supports the income. That change has almost stopped cold that type of fraud and has saved taxpayers millions of dollars in fraudulent refunds.
**Disclaimer: This post is for discussion purposes only and is NOT tax advice. The author takes no responsibility for the accuracy of any information in this post.**
