Fat refund for fraud-based tax payments

October 21, 2007

HealthSouth Corp., the Alabama-based hospital chain, last week pocketed a $440 million federal tax refund.

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The money back was in connection with taxes HealthSouth paid on $2.7 billion in fraudulent profits. The IRS issued the refund because the taxes were assessed on profits that were not real.

The check was for $296 million in overpayments and $144 million in interest.

This is one case where I’m glad that Uncle Sam got use of the improperly paid tax money for at least a little while.

More on the overpayment refund can be found in this New York Times story.

HealthSouth wasn’t so lucky, though, back in August, when it tried to collect on excess property tax payments.

In that instance, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that the Birmingham-based company wasn’t entitled to a $900,000 property tax refund for fraud-inflated levies paid in 2001 and 2002.

More on the property tax smackdown can be found in this Birmingham News article.

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