Tax officials in New York state say they have stopped nearly 240,000 false tax refunds worth $400 million this tax season.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced the figure on Thursday, four days after the annual tax filing deadline.
Jerry Boone, the state's commissioner of tax and finance, says the state uses software to automatically detect potentially fraudulent tax returns among the 10 million state income tax returns filed each year. When the system flags a return it is set aside for a closer look.
Cuomo says New York has "zero tolerance" for those who try to "cheat the system" at the expense of honest taxpayers.
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