Revenue commissioner: Minnesota prevented or recovered more than $2.26 billion over four years
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Summary
The Department of Revenue told the committee that through collections, audits and fraud prevention tools it validated about $270 million of stopped refund fraud in the last four years and verified roughly $2.26 billion brought in or prevented over that period; the department said it also blocks millions of attempted cyberattacks annually.
The Department of Revenue summarized to the House committee how voluntary compliance, education, enforcement and fraud detection systems combine to protect state tax dollars. Commissioner Paul Marquardt said Minnesota achieves roughly 97% to 98% voluntary compliance and that Revenue uses education, automated systems and a criminal investigation unit to stop fraud.
Marquardt provided specific recent results: approximately $562,000,000 identified through collections and audits in 2025; roughly $270,000,000 of prevented or validated refund-related fraud in the last four years; and about $2,260,000,000 brought in or prevented across the department's efforts in the same four-year span. He said some prevented fraud involves stolen identities, which complicates criminal prosecution when perpetrators cannot be located.
Melanie Leslie, director of the Criminal Investigation Division, told members the unit's slide deck shows criminal charges filed from 2022 through 2025 and invited committee members to review the published case list on the department's newsroom page for details. Leslie said the department prosecutes willful evasion and false returns under relevant statutes and that criminal investigations are pursued when evidence supports felony charges.
Why it matters: Commissioner Marquardt noted a recent executive order (Governor Walz's Executive Order 25-10) requires state agencies to report potential tax fraud to Revenue and promotes data-sharing across agencies, increasing the department's referral stream. He said these interagency measures and legislative support have improved detection and prevention effectiveness.
Members asked about prosecution counts versus civil collections; Marquardt and Leslie explained some prevented losses are civil-collection outcomes while criminal prosecutions are pursued when suspects are identified and evidence meets prosecutorial thresholds.
Next steps: Revenue will supply additional detail about criminal-charge trends and referred cases on request, and members asked the department to make statistics and published case lists available for committee review.
