I hope you are sitting down for this news. A recent audit of the first-time homebuyer tax credit program reveals it is laden with fraud.
Gasp! Say it ain’t so! A massive government handout encourages people to game the system for “free money”? I know, you’re all completely blindsided by this news, but here is a snippet from the article:
Thousands of individuals claiming the first-time home buyer’s $8,000 tax credit may have been trying to scam the system, including purported 4-year-olds and illegal immigrants, according to a watchdog report released Thursday.
Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration J. Russell George told a House panel that more than 19,000 people filed 2008 tax returns claiming the credit for homes they had not yet purchased. George said his office had identified another $500 million in claims, by some 74,000 taxpayers, where there were indications of prior home ownership
He told a House Ways and Means oversight subcommittee that they also found 580 taxpayers under the age of 18 who claimed $4 million in first-time home buyer credit. One was 4 years old.
“Some of our findings, while preliminary, are somewhat disturbing,” George said. Among the most striking instances of fraud include 4-year-olds, non-U.S. citizens and IRS employees inappropriately claiming the benefit, he said.
This coming on the heels of the completely incompetent handling of the cash for clunkers program. And let’s not forget about the federal government’s abysmal record on projecting the costs of government health care programs.
Who in their right mind thinks that government is capable of controlling the earth’s climate or running the medical care system?
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