They say you can't escape death or taxes. But Tennessee hopes to put a stop, at least, to tax refunds flowing improperly to inmates in prisons around the state.
An audit has revealed that more than 2,000 prisoners in Tennessee filed phony tax returns in 2009, collecting nearly $700,000 in bogus refunds.
They falsely claimed to have jobs when they filled out the forms, and they got Social Security numbers from other prisoners to use in seeking the refunds, to which they were not entitled, The Associated Press reported. Authorities think outsiders aided the fraud.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Corrections aptly labeled what the inmates are suspected of doing as "stealing thousands of dollars from taxpayers."
Officials plan to prosecute the suspects.
That's obviously appropriate, but we'll be curious to see how much of that nearly $700,000 is ever recovered for the taxpayers from whose pockets it was taken.