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WASHINGTON — More than 48,800 of the nation’s prisoners claimed $130 million in fraudulent tax refunds by March, and the numbers are probably much higher, a new watchdog report says. The IRS paid $112 million of the claims, a small fraction of the $326 billion in refunds this year.
The number of fraudulent payments to inmates has climbed 37 percent since 2004, said the report, which noted that the rise is partly a result of increased IRS detection and enforcement.
The IRS doesn’t screen most prisoners’ tax returns, according to the report by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, set for release today.
