The Internal Revenue Service, state tax administrators and leaders of the tax industry announced continued progress to expand and strengthen protections against identity theft refund fraud for the 2016 tax season. The industry and government groups have identified numerous new data elements that can be shared at the time of filing with the IRS and states to help authenticate a taxpayer and detect identity theft refund fraud. They are breaking new ground in the battle against identity theft. Taxpayers will have more protection than ever when they file their tax returns.