Your Taxes at Work . . . Tax Refunds to Inmates
The Associated Press and CBS News, among others, reported last week:
“Nearly 50,000 prison inmates claimed more than $130 million in tax refunds this year without providing any wage information to the IRS, a government investigator says in a report to be released Thursday.
“The Treasury inspector general for tax administration stops short of saying the refunds were fraudulently claimed. It does, however, say the Internal Revenue Service should investigate further.
“The report is the latest in a series of audits looking at prison inmates claiming tax credits and other government payments. It notes that the IRS identified nearly 250,000 fraudulent tax returns during the 2010 filing season — a 50 percent increase over 2009 — preventing $1.48 billion in fraudulent refunds.”
According to the AP, “The IRS said it works with state and federal prisons to get information about inmates on a voluntary basis.” However, CBS News adds:
“Florida (8,777), Georgia (7,351) and California (3,713) state prisons top the list.
“The single worst offender was an Ohio facility, where nearly 30 percent of the inmates filed false returns with the IRS for 2009. But when CBS News contacted the prison, they had no idea about the problem, saying in an email, "This is not an issue."
[ . . . ]
“Late this afternoon, after repeated requests from CBS News, the IRS finally sent us a statement. It says in part, "…the IRS remains focused on improving our techniques to address this type of fraud. However, without Congressional action to require state and federal prisons to report on the status of inmates to the IRS, there will be gaps in the prison data and compliance problems will persist."
Don’t you just look forward to the time when ObamaCare is fully implemented?