Alabama woman who was part of an identity theft scheme has pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States. Scottie Alice Johnson of Montgomery County, Ala., was accused of being part of a family ring that used stolen IDs to obtain more than $1.7 million in tax refunds.

Payroll vendor CompuPay has been renamed under the brand of its parent company, BenefitMall. Based in Nashville, Tenn., CompuPay was acquired almost a year ago by Dallas, Texas-based BenefitMall a year ago and had been doing business as CompuPay, a BenefitMall company.

The most effective way to prevent tax returns is to identify crooked preparers. That statement was part of the report to Congress this week by the Electronic Tax Administration Advisory Committee. The report notes the number of fraudulent tax refunds identified and stopped in 2012 was almost seven times what it was 10 years earlier.