Prisons should provide tax status of inmates
The Advertiser-Tribune – Apparently, crime does pay when Uncle Sam is the victim. That needs to end – now.
Four senators, including Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, are upset the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Internal Revenue Service have not cracked down on prison inmates who receive income tax refunds improperly.
Throughout the nation, enterprising convicts have conned the IRS out of a whopping $123 million during the past five years, the senators point out. The IRS itself admits that in 2009, 45,000 fraudulent tax returns were filed by prison inmates.
That is outrageous. As Brown put it, "Middle-class Ohioans who work hard and play by the rules shouldn't foot the bill when convicted criminals commit tax fraud from the very place they were locked up for committing a crime in the first place."
