The hotline set up by TurboTax has a hefty wait time in exchange for straightforward information: The company expects the filing pause announced Thursday night to be temporary.

Minnesota revenue officials said they have stopped accepting online tax returns from TurboTax, one of the most popular private filing services, after hearing evidence of potential fraud from multiple Minnesota taxpayers.

After a 72-minute wait on the company’s “identity protection line,” a TurboTax representative explained that the filing pause for Minnesota state tax returns should end in “a few days” and that state tax officials have to approve lifting the pause.

The representative said the pause only affects returns that already have been filed. Any returns filed after the pause won’t be processed until it is lifted.

About 267,000 returns had been filed as of Wednesday, according to the Minnesota Department of Revenue. That is about 10 percent of what is expected from the state this tax season.

State revenue officials flagged several thousand returns that had used TurboTax in order to review them. The TurboTax representative said if the state reviews a return, the filer can expect their refund “in full,” but likely later than those not selected for review.

On a conference call Thursday night, state revenue officials said the department’s databases have not been breached and a “robust fraudulent protection system is in place.”

According to comScore, Intuit software captured almost 60 percent of the market for do-it-yourself electronic tax filers nationwide in 2012.