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While government officials said many suspect claims could turn out to be simple errors, the report found examples of claimants who already owned homes or had not yet bought one. Some 582 taxpayers were under 18 years old — as young as 4. Of the 1.4 million people who have claimed nearly $10 billion in credits for 2008 and 2009, 60 percent had incomes below $50,000, raising questions about whether some could afford a home.
The report was released at a hearing of the oversight subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee. The subcommittee’s chairman, Representative John Lewis, Democrat of Georgia, announced afterward that he had introduced a bill to give the I.R.S. additional authority to detect and block questionable claims and to require that taxpayers provide documents with their returns to prove they had closed on their purchases.
