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Inmate tax fraud: $100M crime

Last tax year IRS caught and stopped more than $1.7 billion in fraudulent tax refunds filed by prison inmates

By Stephen Stock, Julie Putnam and Jeremy Carroll
NBC Bay Area

WASHINGTON — Tax refund fraud among the nation’s prison population has grown more than 1,000 percent in the last decade according to the latest data obtained by NBC Bay Area’s Investigative Unit from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration in Washington, D.C.

The Inspector General told NBC Bay Area that in the last tax year the IRS caught and stopped more than $1.7 billion in fraudulent tax refunds filed by prison inmates.

He said of millions of more tax dollars actually get sent to inmates in the form of tax refunds that are not due to them.

Full story: Inmate Tax Fraud: $100 Million Crime

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