Welfare and Tax Fraud

Welfare recipients attest under penalty of perjury that they are separate households from anyone else with whom they reside. This means that all income earned by others is excluded from determination of eligibility. Often, parents or others close to the applicant provide rent reciepts and attest to preparing food separately. Yet, many of these family members claim the welfare recipients as dependents on their income tax return, obtaining tax credits and reduced tax liabilty. Though illegal, there is no current audit program, and the welfare records are protected under privacy laws. Your representative in Congress should be alerted to the need for a task force to investigate this type of fraud and to put a program in place that will prevent its continuance. Additionally, all individual taxpayers should be granted access to welfare records when cases in which they may be implicated are brought to the attention of the taxing authorities.