Editing Tax Reform Act of 1986 (section)

==Fraudulent dependents==
The Act required people claiming children as dependents on their tax returns to obtain and list a [[Social Security number]] for every claimed child, to verify the child's existence. Before this act, parents claiming [[tax deduction]]s were on the [[honor system]] not to lie about the number of children they supported. The requirement was phased in, and initially Social Security numbers were required only for children over the age of 5. During the first year, this anti-fraud change resulted in seven million fewer dependents being claimed, nearly all of which are believed to have involved either children that never existed, or tax deductions improperly claimed by non-custodial parents.<ref>{{cite journal| journal =National Tax Journal| volume =53| date =December 2000| author =Jeffrey B. Liebman| title =Who Are the Ineligible EITC Recipients?| issue =4, Part 2| pages =1165–1186| doi =10.17310/ntj.2000.4S1.06| s2cid =35405024| url =https://www.ntanet.org/NTJ/53/4/ntj-v53n04p1165-86-who-are-ineligible-eitc.pdf| access-date =2021-09-01| archive-date =2017-08-09| archive-url =https://web.archive.org/web/20170809020256/http://www.ntanet.org/NTJ/53/4/ntj-v53n04p1165-86-who-are-ineligible-eitc.pdf| url-status =dead}}</ref>