As though the IRS couldn’t get any more bad press, a 2012 audit report shows that in 2011 the IRS sent more than $46 million in tax refunds to 23,994 “unauthorized” alien workers who all listed the exact same Atlanta, GA address.
According to TheBlaze, the report, conducted by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA), was published last year at the request of members of Congress. It revealed 10 addresses in the U.S. that were issued anywhere from 1,846 to 23,994 tax refunds each. Four of those 10 addresses were located in Atlanta.
“Are you telling me we don't have a computer that spits that anomaly out,” Glenn asked on radio this morning. “There's nothing that says, ‘Hey, warning.’ Nothing?
TheBlaze reports the “TIGTA report explains that the IRS since 1996 has been issuing what it calls Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers (ITINs) to both non-resident aliens who have tax liability in the U.S. and illegal aliens living in the U.S. but who are ‘not authorized to work in the country.’”
It looks like Washington has known about this abuse for the better part of a decade, with a 1999 TIGTA report specifically drawing attention to the ITINs problem:
“The IRS issues Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers (ITINs) to undocumented aliens to improve nonresident alien compliance with tax laws. This IRS practice seems counter-productive to the Immigration and Naturalization Service’s (INS) mission to identify undocumented aliens and prevent unlawful alien entry.”
In addition to the 23,994 refunds in Atlanta, TheBlaze explains that the IRS assigned 15,028 unauthorized aliens ITINs at the same address in Dallas, Texas, and 10,356 ITINs at the same address in Atlantic City, N.J.
“So I'd like to know, where did these go? And where's all this money,” Glenn asked. “Did it go to drug dealers? Who did this? Tell me, tell me that you have 23,994 checks, there's no alarm that says we have made a check out to this address 2,300 times, I'm sorry, 24,000 times. No alarm?”
“You could understand it if they sent two different checks to the same address and screwed up that way,” Pat said. “You can't understand it when it's 24,000 checks to the same address and they are all illegal aliens? And it's 46 million in total? That's unconscionable.”
“Unauthorized" alien workers around the country have been able to scam the system for millions and millions of dollars for decades, while law abiding TEA Party members are audited.
“Maybe you should spend less time on the TEA Party and more time on this,” Glenn said. “And you know what? And you know who continues to work on this? The Senate and the House, continue to make sure that we've got even more benefits for illegal aliens. I don't know about you, but I think we've done enough here. I think we've done enough. I'm not interested in any kind of new legislation whatsoever on any of this stuff.”
