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State withholds millions in tax refunds

With more than 400,000 state income tax returns still to be processed, auditors have blocked more than $16 million in dubious refund requests.

That $16 million is up from $13 million last year in shaky refund requests.

State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli says his office releases these figures each year to encourage people who do it right and warn those who do it wrong.

He says the number isn't all that large, 5,900 returns so far, but it can indicate problems since around a quarter involved tax preparers submitting ineligible refund credits.

DiNapoli says his auditors work with the Taxation and Finance Department which is in charge of tax collections.

His auditors "provide another pair of eyes in looking at the refunds that are being processed."

DiNapoli says some of the returns are checked or amended for things as basic as arithmetic mistakes and processed successfully.

Mike Desmond is one of Western New York’s most experienced reporters, having spent nearly a half-century covering the region for newspapers, television stations and public radio. He has been with WBFO and its predecessor, WNED-AM, since 1988. As a reporter for WBFO, he has covered literally thousands of stories involving education, science, business, the environment and many other issues. Mike has been a long-time theater reviewer for a variety of publications and was formerly a part-time reporter for The New York Times.