WASHINGTON, D.C. - At today's hearing of the Senate Finance Committee, U.S. Senator Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) questioned Treasury Secretary nominee Jack Lew on what steps he would take to fight tax fraud should he be confirmed Treasury Secretary.

Recently, Pennsylvania has suffered a disturbing trend whereby fraudulent tax returns are being filed using legitimate Social Security numbers in order to generate improper tax refunds. Sen. Toomey has long advocated measures to allow Pennsylvania's local law enforcement officials to more aggressively pursue perpetrators of tax fraud.

"I thought it was especially important to ask Mr. Lew about what plans he would enact to combat tax fraud," said Sen. Toomey. "And I thank Pennsylvania's local law enforcement community and district attorneys for bringing this critical issue to my attention and continuing their tireless efforts to stop criminals from stealing the tax returns of hardworking Pennsylvanians."

A partial transcript of Sen. Toomey's questioning is below:

SEN. TOOMEY: "On a separate topic, you may be aware of a huge expansion of a relatively new form of tax-fraud. We have seen this in Pennsylvania, where criminals steal a Social Security Number, they submit a tax-return to the Treasury seeking a refund, and they get it. The unsuspecting victim whose identity has been stolen wonders why they never got their refund. It is because someone else got an unrelated and a fraudulent refund.

The IRS believes that this could be on the scale of tens of billions of dollars a year. They have made some progress, I am glad that they included Pennsylvania in a pilot program to work more closely with local law enforcement authority. But I think more needs to be done. I think that it can be done. The technology exists to largely solve this problem. Are you prepared to commit to making sure that we get this under control?"

MR. LEW: "Senator, my understanding is that the IRS is has put a good deal of resources behind this, has made a good deal of progress. It is a pernicious kind of crime, identity theft, and the President spoke to this issue last night in the more broader context of cyber-security. We have a whole new level of criminal activity where very clever and creative criminals are trying to get a step of systems that are going to need to get a step ahead of them and if confirmed I would work with the IRS commissioner to make sure that the IRS was doing that. I think we also need cyber-security legislation for the broader threat."