The Atlantic

How to Actually Prosecute the Financial Crimes of the Very Rich

I quit the DOJ because I no longer wanted to participate in a system this permissive.
Source: Heritage Images / Getty / The Atlantic

It was tax season 1999. I was a federal economic-crimes prosecutor in Miami, and this was the time of year my colleagues and I brought cases to deter would-be tax cheats. My target was a tax-return preparer operating out of Liberty City’s “Pork & Beans” projects, made famous in the movie . This tax preparer had been manufacturing false W-2s and Social Security numbers so that her clients would receive an earned-income tax credit to which they weren’t entitled—amounting to more than $100,000 in bogus refunds. She eventually pleaded guilty and spent

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