Posted on 08/07/2012 8:45:43 PM PDT by george76
A small South Florida city has attracted the attention of federal investigators looking into tax refund fraud and identity theft, according to an independent watchdog agency that oversees the Internal Revenue Service.
In Belle Glade, nestled along Lake Okeechobee, 741 tax returns worth more than $1 million in refunds were filed from a single address last year, according to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration.
The Belle Glade address ranked third nationally for number of returns filed. Investigators would not release the address, citing confidentiality rules on tax returns. But House Oversight Subcommittee Chairman Charles Boustany Jr., R-La., referred to it as a home.
Three of the top five addresses used to file potentially fraudulent returns were in Florida
...
Nationally, thieves are suspected of using the identities of 2,274 children, 105,000 dead people and almost 1 million people who don't normally file returns to collect $5.2 billion in refunds.
The Inspector General's analysis found that incidents of identity theft jumped 155 percent last year.
(Excerpt) Read more at sun-sentinel.com ...
Was that Florida address 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue perchance?
Belle Glade, Florida used to have the highest incident of Aids in our great nation. It is also or used to be very poor.
The IRS is all over people who run businesses and itemize. Then they let crap like this happen. How long have they been doing this?
Not one word in the article about whether they tracked down the tax cheats.
You must not be a member of a government preferred group.
Must be a REALLY big home-bet you can see it from orbit!;)
Yeah the “Shaft” group because that’s what the government has given me.
You are correct. The IRS knows that Florida is the epicenter of tax fraud but indictments are far and few between. The local police complained about the magnitude of the problem so Federal agencies stepped in to “help”.
Stories like this drive me CRAZY. Clearly it happens over and over again because they really, at heart, don’t care. They are culturally so focused on going after actual working people that they invite fraud from the nonproducers.
Alcee Hastings’ district.
What a shock.
How many voters from that address?
Probably the addresses were hooked to Alcee Hastings’ freezer.
Did the “investigation” require a lot of resources and take a lot of time?
Only a government employee would be stupid enough to miss this?
Did the “investigation” require a lot of resources and take a lot of time?
Only a government employee would be stupid enough to miss this?
For more than 40 years. I went to work for the IRS 41 years ago and fraudulent refund returns, or "refund mills" as they were called, were common then. I remember the first one I discovered and reported to my supervisor who told me to just let the fraudulent one go and process the legitimate taxpayer's refund and send it out. "Aren't we going to do anything about the crook who stole this guy's SSN?" I asked. "No." said my supervisor. Later I uncovered a much bigger one involving a couple of hundred false returns, all claiming refunds going to the same address. They decided to act on this one and they arrested the tax preparer. All the returns were fictitious Hispanic names, and the preparer was an illegal himself. Go figure.
The problem stems from the desire to give people fast tax refunds. The refunds are issued before any W3”s are required to be received by the IRS. So the IRS knows nothing but what is on the return. Congress is the one that puts the IRS in this position. Congress needs to change the law so that no refund is issued until the third party W’2 is recorded. No salary information ...no tax refund or earned income tax credit. This would require that the politicians change the law to delay tax refunds..which would be very unpopular. If you want to solve the problem..let Visa or Amex handle all the accounts..from employers and taxpayers. They could do it near real time.
The address is probably the same place where a “constituent” of his “found” several boxes of “uncounted ballots” right after the 2000 election.
And illegal voting is not a problem, right.........
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