$46 Million in Refunds to 23,994 Illegals at 1 Atlanta Address

"The Internal Revenue Service sent 23,994 tax refunds worth a combined $46,378,040 to 'unauthorized' alien workers who all used the same address in Atlanta, Ga., in 2011, according to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA)," reports CNSNews. "That was not the only Atlanta address theoretically used by thousands of 'unauthorized' alien workers receiving millions in federal tax refunds in 2011. In fact, according to a TIGTA audit report published last year, four of the top ten addresses to which the IRS sent thousands of tax refunds to 'unauthorized' aliens were in Atlanta."

Here's the list of the top ten 'singular' tax refund addresses identified by the IG:

• $46,378,040 in 23,994 tax refunds to a single Atlanta GA address
• $10,395,874 in 2,507 refunds to a single Oxnard CA address
• $7,284,212 in 2,408 refunds to a Raleigh NC address
• $5,558,608 in 2,047 refunds to a Phoenix AZ address
• $5,091,027 in 1,942 refunds to a San Jose CA address
• $3,298,877 in 1,846 refunds to an Arvin CA address
• $2,691,448 in 3,608 refunds to a second Atlanta address
• $2,256,302 in 1,972 refunds to a Palm Beach Gardens FL address
• $2,164,976 in 11,284 refunds to a third Atlanta address
• $1,231,943 in 2,386 refunds to a fourth Atlanta address

Grand total: $86,352,307 in tax refunds sent to 10 addresses. It gets worse.

Since 1996, the IRS has issued what it calls Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers (ITINs) to two classes of persons: 1) non-resident aliens who have a tax liability in the United States, and 2) aliens living in the United States who are “not authorized to work in the United States.”

The IRS has long known it was giving these numbers to illegal aliens, and thus facilitating their ability to work illegally in the United States. For example, the Treasury Inspector General’s Semiannual Report to Congress published on Oct. 29, 1999—nearly fourteen years ago—specifically drew attention to this 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,” TIGTA warned in that long-ago report.

The inspector general’s 2012 audit report on the IRS’s handling of ITINs was spurred by two IRS employees who went to members of Congress "alleging that IRS management was requiring employees to assign Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers (ITIN) even when the applications were fraudulent.”

In an August 2012 press release accompanying the audit report, TIGTA said the report 'validated' the complaints of the IRS employees."