By John D. McKinnon 

WASHINGTON--Tax officials and lawmakers on Thursday urged more and faster information sharing between the government, tax-filing services and employers to help address the growing problem of tax refund fraud using stolen identity information.

The federal government lost at least $5.8 billion to refund scams in 2013, according to the latest official estimates. The problem has continued this year with a wave of fraudulent state tax filings that rely on information from taxpayers' prior-year returns.

"Though early in the 2015 filing season, we are already seeing a dramatic increase in the use of valid identities which have been stolen, " Mike Alley, Indiana's revenue commissioner, said at a Senate Finance Committee hearing. That is "particularly concerning because stopping fraud with valid identity information is much more difficult" than prior versions of the scam, he added.

Intuit Inc.'s TurboTax suspended filing of state returns for about 24 hours in February after the company and state tax officials saw a spate of fraudulent filings. The company doesn't believe its system was breached. The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Internal Revenue Service have been probing what happened.

State tax officials said the problems aren't unique to TurboTax. Crooks have been using hacked identity information to exploit other commercial tax-filing systems too, they said.

Utah Tax Commission Chairman John Valentine said tax-filing firms should be required to tighten their security to better secure their data from unauthorized disclosure.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D., Ore.), the committee's top Democrat, said solving the ever-shifting problem also will require better cooperation and information-sharing by all the major players, including federal and state tax agencies, as well as private-sector tax-filing services and others. "Part of the challenge is getting states, Internet tax services and the IRS on the same wavelength," Mr. Wyden said. "Everybody's got to communicate and work together to make sure criminals can't just nimbly slide from one jurisdiction to the next."

Hearing witnesses said the IRS and many states have gotten more adept at blocking fraudulent returns in recent years, leading the crooks to become more sophisticated.

Lawmakers and state officials urged specific changes in law and policy to help block fraudulent returns. For example, several officials said employers should be required to send in official wage data to tax agencies sooner, so the agency can check it against claims on returns. Currently, tax agencies often don't get wage data until after returns are filed and refunds are paid.

The Obama administration already has requested legislation requiring wage information to be filed earlier, although some payroll firms have warned it would cause disruptions. The administration also has sought several other measures to fight refund fraud, including about $82 million for additional staff and technology.

Write to John D. McKinnon at john.mckinnon@wsj.com

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