Remember the First-Time Homebuyer Tax Credit? It was perhaps the only effective or successful federal economic program in the past five+ years. Well, Even those rare government programs that actually work are fraught with fraud. Go figure.
As early as last October, there were reports of fraud schemes and suspicious claims as the tax credit was set to expire and was being considered for extension (see DSNews 10/20/09). That’s not so surprising.
What’s shocking is the recent report that prison inmates were able “to apply for and receive $9.1 million in homebuyer tax credits” (see DSNews 6/24/10). This article refers to a Treasury audit report that further shows that 241 inmates serving life sentences received a combined $1.7 million in tax credits.
This sort of begs the question: what kind of income tax liability can you earn serving a life sentence behind bars? Is there even any point in a federal tax credit?

The same Treasury audit also indicates that $17.6 million in claims were allowed for homes purchased before the tax credit program. It gets better, though, with the reports of post-refund claims resulting in investigation, $785 million, or post-refund claims resulting in denial, $438 million. The IRS seems to be catching a whole lot more fraud than they miss, but still . . .
- Homebuyer tax credit audit shows fraud in the millions of dollars (agentgenius.com)
- Prisoners Cash In On the Homebuyer Tax Credit (hsh.com)
- Inmates, IRS Employers Among Those Found to Abuse Homebuyer Tax Credit (blogs.forbes.com)
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