Your tax dollar at work
Remember the government’s “first time home buyer” tax credit of $8000 designed to help the sluggish housing industry? Well, it seems that it has done far more than that.
Yesterday we learned from J. Russell George, the Treasury Department’s inspector general for tax administration, that more than 14,000 tax filers filed for and received the tax credit when they didn’t deserve it. No big deal, you say? Well, as it turns out, that more than $26.7 million in credits were obtained by people who didn’t deserve them.
An innocent mistake, you say…people just didn’t understand the tax forms? Not exactly. 1300 prison inmates applied for and were granted the tax credit to the tune of more than $9 million.
And, were that not enough to make your blood boil, George’s report also points out that,
[a] common scam had multiple taxpayers using the sale of a single home, with each claiming the credit. One home was used by 67 tax filers…
So, what does Representative John Lewis (D. Ga.), chairman of the House Ways and Means oversight subcommittee have to say about this?
Last year, we learned that children and persons who did not purchase homes were fraudulently claiming the first-time homebuyer credit,… [a]lthough I am pleased that the fraud identified earlier does not continue, I am concerned about prisoners claiming the credit.
He’s concerned…that’s it? Oh, heck, I forgot, it’s not his money.
8 Comments
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The site is not broken.
If I may offer a liberal Democrat response.
This embarrassing situation would not have happened had these people not been in prison.
Don't worry, Øbama will probably give amnesty to everyone in the prisons too. Gotta make room for the Tea Party folks….
Just wait until this bumbling bunch gets their hands on that $20 billion from BP. There will be sheepdogs in Minnesota getting a piece of the pie.
What do you mean "not his money" SoS? Rep. Knollenberg already established that it's not ours, so seems to me it is the governments, right?
Is this why legitimate home buyers like my son who bought a house in November and applied for the tax credit still has not received it? Maybe he would get it quicker if he was in prison.
Gerry-
Same problem here. We closed on our home in December, and have been informed by the IRS that we shouldn't expect our tax credit check until maybe September. Makes we wonder how these crooks got theirs so fast.
1300 prison inmates, they're just supporting their key voting blocks.
The bulk of criminals, convicted or not, are Democrats.