50,000 inmates claim tax refunds, report no wages

[Geee]

Daily Caller:

WASHINGTON (AP) — 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.

“While the IRS is identifying larger numbers of fraudulent returns, improvements must be made to its screening processes to ensure that returns filed by prisoners get adequate scrutiny,” said J. Russell George, the Treasury inspector general for tax administration. “Expanded and expedited access to wage and withholding information would significantly increase the IRS’s ability to verify information reported on a tax return when processed, and prevent fraud.”