MemeMachineGo!

Startling new tale of government incompetence.

A growing number of black taxpayers are being misled by scams falsely claiming that, for a fee, they can get tax credits or refunds as reparations for slavery. The scams are given credence when some taxpayers actually get money.

[...]In 2000 and the first four months of 2001, Williams said, more than $30 million in erroneous reparations payments were paid. [...] Most of the mistaken payments were for about $43,000, a figure Essence magazine suggested in 1993 as the updated value of 40 acres and a mule, which some freed slaves were given under an order by a Union general during the Civil War.

The moral of the story would seem to be that it pays to make up tax credits.

(Via Follow Me Here, my favorite blog of recent discovery)