ST. PAUL, Minn. - State revenue officials said they have stopped accepting tax returns from TurboTax, one of the most popular private filing services, after hearing evidence of “potential fraud” from multiple Minnesota taxpayers.

During an evening conference call with reporters, Minnesota Department of Revenue Commissioner Cynthia Bauerly said those in her department had heard late Wednesday from two taxpayers who had attempted to file returns on TurboTax, but were instead notified that their returns already had been filed. The notifications came as soon as taxpayers signed on to start their returns.

Of the 267,000 Minnesota tax returns already filed, the department flagged “a couple thousand” returns that had used TurboTax, in order to review them. Deputy commissioner Terri Steenblock said the returns were flagged solely because they had used TurboTax.

Department officials said they had no additional information Thursday evening relating to the potential fraud and added that the problem wasn’t limited to Minnesota. They added that their own systems and data have not been breached.

“We are aware of other states that are aware of potentially fraudulent activity,” noted Steenblock.

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Earlier Thursday, the Utah State Tax Commission released a statement saying their internal fraud detection systems had discovered 28 fraudulent returns by residents using third-party filers and that 18 states had similar problems.

They noted that some taxpayers, like those in Minnesota, had received a message that their returns had already been filed as they were attempting to do so using TurboTax.

Bauerly said Intuit - the Mountain View, Calif.-based company that owns TurboTax - had set up a hotline for Minnesotans concerned about their returns.

That line - 1-800-944-8596 - will open at 8 a.m. Friday.

There was no mention of the incidents on either Intuit or TurboTax’s home page, or on TurboTax’s online “press center.”

A TurboTax spokeswoman did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment Thursday evening.

Revenue officials said tax preparers can continue to use other professional filing programs, including Lacerte, ProSeries and Intuit tax online.

In 2013, the state ran into other problems with TurboTax - again, warning residents not to use it. Those problems appear unrelated, Steenblock said.

In that instance, several of TurboTax’s online forms - including 13 line items - were programmed incorrectly, leading to errors in the returns.

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

The St. Paul Pioneer Press is a partner of Forum News Service.