ABOUT:
Defense policy analysis, commentary and discussion.Can the taxman help find kidnapped kids?
Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) and Rep. Pete Stark (D-Calif.) think so. The duo have donned their crime-fighting capes in an effort to help cops catch kidnappers, introducing companion bills that would amend the U.S. tax code to allow police to use tax returns to find kidnappers.
The bill was drafted in reaction to a 2007 Treasury Department study that found some kidnappers pay their taxes just like the rest of us, while others pay their taxes and declare the children they’ve abducted as their dependents.
Even more impressive is that “hundreds of those tax returns had a new address for the child and the abductor,” Stark said on the floor last week.
A clever ruse, kidnappers. But Congress is on to you.
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