Black Inheritance Tax

[Jody]

It's about that time of year (tax time). If anyone receives an email with a phone number claiming to have the inside scoop on how to get a tax refund because of your race, be forewarned it's a HOAX.

Please check out the Internal Revenue Service website: www.irs.gov - there is a section on scams.

[Dancerella1908]

Thanks for the heads up Soror Jody!!!

[Honeykiss1974]

IRS mistakenly paid millions in slavery credits, investigation shows
04/13/2002 09:24 PM EDT

WASHINGTON (AP) - A Treasury Department investigation shows the Internal Revenue Service mistakenly paid out more than $30 million to tax filers seeking nonexistent slavery tax credits in 2000 and 2001.

A growing number of black taxpayers are being misled by scams falsely claiming that, for a fee, they can get tax credits or refunds as reparations for slavery. The scams are given credence when some taxpayers actually get money.

The IRS received more than 77,000 tax returns last year claiming $2.7 billion in reparations refunds, up from 13,000 the year before. Last year, the IRS discovered that some erroneous refunds were being issued but was only partly effective in stopping them.

The Treasury inspector general for tax administration, David C. Williams, said in Senate testimony this week that refunds of more than $80,000 were issued "in some instances" to married couples when each spouse claimed the reparations credit.

In 2000 and the first four months of 2001, Williams said, more than $30 million in erroneous reparations payments were paid. After April of last year, a computer program developed by the inspector general identified an additional $16.1 million in claims before they were paid.

The Washington Post, citing an unidentified official, reported that one IRS employee is under investigation for allegedly helping process returns that claimed the credit. At least 12 current and former IRS employees, all low-level workers in processing centers, applied to receive such a credit, the newspaper report said.

Typical scams use terms such as "black investment taxes," "reparations for African-Americans" or a "black inheritance tax refund."

This is the first indication of what these scams cost the government. Most of the mistaken payments were for about $43,000, a figure Essence magazine suggested in 1993 as the updated value of 40 acres and a mule, which some freed slaves were given under an order by a Union general during the Civil War.

The tax agency is now trying to recover the money it paid out, though officials would not disclose how much has been collected.

Starting Monday, the IRS will be begin levying a $500 fine on taxpayers who do not withdraw the claim if they have been caught.

[techie_girl_44]

This is just too funny to me. The IRS actually paid out this credit now wants its money back? I would tell them to forget it quick fast and in a hurry. That's their error, they need to eat it and move on about their business.

The IRS is going to go through some serious stuff now that this precedent has been set. Can you picture it? Millions of people claiming this credit because their (insert relative here) got it. I can't wait to see how this unfolds.

[darling1]

i just saw a news report from douglass, georgia discussing this. i was wondering was anyone from a MAJOR city contacted about this??

[Jody]

Peoples! As I stated previously, this is a hoax! Even though the refund was paid to a few people, it was paid because people at the IRS were cheating! If one thinks that the government will not get it's money from the people it has overpaid, they are sadly mistaken. Before September 11, alot of people at government (federal jobs) just let stuff slide...NO MORE!

[Kimmie1913]

And they can still screw you! Even if it is there mistake the law puts the responsibility to file correct taxes on YOU not htem. And that is what audits are for- so they can figure out what you got that you shouldn't have and take it back! There is no finders keepers with the IRS! I mean is participating in a scam worth the havoc they are going to wreak in the lives of the people who got th money and promptly spent it and now can't pay it back? I doblt it.

[Honeykiss1974]

Father, daughter guilty of filing for nonexistent tax credit

By Justin Bergman
ASSOCIATED PRESS

WARSAW, Va., Oct., 23 — A tax preparer was sentenced Thursday to 13 years in prison and his daughter received just over three years for filing a false income tax return claiming nonexistent slavery reparations.

ROBERT L. FOSTER, 51, and Crystal Foster, 25, also were ordered by a federal judge to repay the Internal Revenue Service about half of the $500,000 refund the daughter received in October 2001.

The daughter had spent the money in eight days, buying a $40,000 Mercedes Benz, paying off student loans and helping her brother pay for his first year at Virginia Tech. Prosecutors say only about half the money has been recovered.

Robert Foster prepared his daughter’s tax forms and was convicted with his daughter in July of trying to defraud the government. According to federal prosecutors, Foster prepared returns for several people claiming more than $3.6 million in reparations, most for about $500,000 each.

Crystal Foster collapsed on the floor after she was sentenced, screaming and crying for her children. Her attorney, David Lassiter, had pleaded for leniency, claiming his client was under her father’s control.

STEPPED-UP SCRUTINY
In an interview at the Northern Neck Regional Jail before his sentencing, Robert Foster maintained he did the right thing.
“Black people are not treated as humans, but as things by the U.S. government,” he said. “We were used as resources to enrich this country and we get no inheritance from the wealth we brought.”

On her tax forms, Crystal Foster claimed she had overpaid taxes on long-term capital gains in 2000. She listed the fictitious “Black Capital Investments” fund as the source of the gains.

The IRS says more than 80,000 tax returns were filed in 2001 seeking nonexistent slavery tax credits totaling $2.7 billion. More than $30 million was mistakenly paid out in slave reparations in 2000 and part of 2001 ( **SMH @ the IRS ).


That number dropped significantly last year after stepped-up scrutiny of tax returns and an aggressive media campaign targeting scam artists promising to secure tax credits for blacks.

MAGAZINE SPURS IDEA
IRS spokeswoman Michelle Lamishaw said the idea of filing reparations claims may stem from a 1993 Essence magazine editorial urging blacks to seek refunds of $43,206 per household.

The magazine said the figure was the modern-day equivalent of 40 acres and a mule, which Congress voted to give former slaves following the Civil War. The deal was vetoed by President Andrew Johnson.

Robert Foster said he increased the total tenfold to account for inflation.

The issue of slavery reparations has long simmered in the United States, but some say it may be gaining momentum. Blacks last year sued a number of large corporations in several states, alleging they profited from slavery for two centuries and that blacks should be compensated.

More recently, Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich said that if elected he would order a study of reparations for descendants of slaves.

© 2003 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.