Tax Fraud is Linked to Public Benefits

Tampa police Chief Jane Castor's officers keep finding signs of identity
theft and tax fraud. On Aug. 9, they stopped the driver of this Infiniti Q45
for an expired tag and found debit cards in other people's names. ?Police
searched the driver's Tampa apartment and seized lists of Social Security
numbers and photocopies of IDs. (EDMUND D. FOUNTAIN | TAMPA BAY TIMES)

By PATTY RYAN
TAMPA BAY TIMES

Published: Sunday, August 19, 2012 at 9:28 a.m.

Last Modified: Sunday, August 19, 2012 at 9:28 a.m.
TAMPA - Last summer, the state sent a notice to a felon's apartment,
reminding Jerry Myea Lee that his food stamps would dry up if he didn't
reapply.
The form letter spit out other offers. Did he need child support? A
telephone discount? How about an Earned Income Tax Credit?
Lee, then 36, kept the paper.
As a teen, he had grown 10 inches eating state-paid food in prison. Each
time he got in trouble and pleaded poverty - robbery, then drugs and guns -
the public paid for his lawyers. His state and federal incarcerations cost
taxpayers almost $300,000.
He was a free man on July 6, 2011, cruising around Tampa in a rented Dodge
Charger, when, during a traffic stop, a police dog got a whiff of weed.
In a bag behind the driver's seat, officers found Lee's food stamps letter -
and $30,980 in cash. Eleven days later, he was caught in Orlando with a U.S.
Treasury check made out to someone else.
Tampa police suspect his cash had roots in tax refund fraud, which has
drained billions of dollars from the U.S. Treasury.
If so, it came from the same beleaguered source that has paid to feed, house
and defend Lee all these years. You.
. . .
Tampa police estimate that 80 to 90 percent of the tax refund fraud they
encounter is committed by people on public assistance.
"The people who are benefiting most from our taxes are the ones doing it,"
said police spokeswoman Andrea Davis.................

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