Just when I was starting to wonder what happened to Kevin McCoy, who has long been the USA Today's most distinctive business writer, he returns with an investigative piece on how prisoners behind bars take the IRS for millions every year with frauds.
Seemingly proving the adage that crime pays, even behind bars, prisoners in the three states received nearly $19 million in IRS refunds during 2009 after filing false or fraudulent tax returns, according to an IRS report to Congress that was included in a federal audit released in January.
McCoy gets SRTN credit for not just running with the "too good to check story" but also getting at the legal issues and interviewing prisoners who have secured the fraudulent information.
He produces for USA Today a telling story about the effectiveness of the IRS at a time when the govenrment is attempting to dramatically up its record-keeping responsibility due to provisions attached to the healthcare reform legislation - an important and well-reported story.
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