Scamming IRS is 'pretty easy,' felon testifies

0 Comments | USA TODAY, April, 2007 | by Kevin McCoy

Filing phony federal tax returns that produced more than $47,000 in refunds was "an easy way to make money quickly" because the IRS lacks strong security safeguards, a convicted felon told Congress Thursday.

Evangelos Dimitrios Soukas testified that he used stolen identities and bogus tax information and electronic filing applications to collect the IRS refunds in 2000 and 2001, even as he was on the run from the FBI.

Two years before his 2005 arrest in Cyprus, Soukas spoke by phone to an IRS agent who "found it hard to believe I was able to do what I was doing with no education in taxes, and ... called me a genius," the 28-year-old convict testified at a Senate Finance Committee hearing.

"I simply responded by telling him that it does not take a...