GOP senator targets education credits

Sen. Dan Coats (R-Ind.) is pushing new legislation aimed at rooting out the fraud involved in tax breaks for higher education. 

Treasury’s inspector general for tax administration reported this month that the IRS wrongly handed over more than $5.6 billion in education credits in 2012, to roughly 3.6 million taxpayers.

{mosads}Coats’s bill, which Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) signed on to, would require a valid tuition statement or other proof of education status to qualify for tax incentives. It also seeks to limit the burdens on colleges and universities. 

“The wide variety of higher education benefits is ripe for fraud, abuse and unintended mistakes due to complicated and confusing rules and thresholds,” Coats said in a statement.

The measure would raise roughly $576 million over a decade, according to congressional scorekeepers.