Florida prisoners lead the nation in IRS payment scam

TAMPA - The detention security team at Hillsborough County jails have been cracking down on inmates attempting to collect tax refunds with stolen IDs.

Pages of employee tax IDs, spreadsheets full of annual earnings, Social Security numbers, and dozens of 1040 EZ forms were found behind bars.

"Just like you have your jailhouse lawyer, these guys are jailhouse accountants," said Steven Gray.  "They'd probably do a better job than H&R Block."

Officials said it has been going on for years in state prisons, and its bleeding into the county jails now.

"They'll actually steal them from other inmates from within the facility.  They'll actually have cohorts and people they're workign with on the outside -- friends and family" helping them, said Gray.

Prisoner Brian Singletery was transferred to Hillsborough County for his appeal recently, and taught the inmates in his pod how to steal from the IRS. 

Singletery had brought with him an entire instruction manual, complete with calculations, employee tax id numbers, and directions on how to steal your identity.

Jail officials have busted 12 inmates so far, but it's difficult to catch the perpetrators.

Hillsborough jail commander Jim Previtera said, "Our ability to investigate tax fraud is nil.  We can investigate identity theft, but we can't investigate the tax fraud."

So jail officials took the info to the IRS, who, they say, showed little interest. The amounts aren't outrageous but the dollars add up and they are deposited into dummy accounts. Inmates also fill up on canteen money in jail. It's your hard-earned tax dollars at work.

Jobs are scarce, and people are out there busting their butts and here these guys are.  They have committed crimes, they are sitting in state prisons they're coming to our county jail and they're getting refunds.