Two Wisconsin prisoners have been getting unemployment benefits, to the tune of $2,697 last year. State auditors were comparing Department of Corrections prisoner data to unemployment data, to see if there was any overlap. Prisoners are not eligible to collect unemployment benefits because they do not meet the “available for employment” test.

According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Department of Workforce Development spokesperson Rose Lynch said that:

…the agency is developing a “cross-match” system to compare records on those receiving unemployment benefits with inmates.

Right hand, may I introduce you to left hand….

There was never a tax increase that Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle didn’t like! Here’s the list from his latest budget:

• Tax on a pack of cigarettes: from $1.25 to $2.02
• Vehicle registration fees: from $55 to $75
• Driver’s license fees: from $24 to $34
• Property taxes: they can go up as much as 4%, which is double the two-year cap that expired in January. This would mean a $75 increase on a home with taxes of $2,730 last year.
• New hospital tax: 1% of gross revenue
• Nursing home bed tax: from $75 a month per bed to $125 a month
• Real estate transfer tax: from $3 to $5 per $1,000 of sale price. This would make the transfer tax on a $166,000 home sale go from $498 to $830.

In addition, Jimmy is proposing taking $175 million from the state’s malpractice fund and wasting that too! Oh, and did I mention that when running for governor in 2002, Doyle said he’d cut 10,000 state jobs? He’s barely made a dent in that so far with less than 3,000 jobs cut, and his current budget adds 791 employees.

A story in the Wall Street Journal details the new credit card quietly being offered by Bank of America. This new credit card is being offered to customers without Social Security numbers, and common sense tells us that this means illegal immigrants.

Banks already have been offering checking accounts and mortgages to “undocumented immigrants” (illegals). However, this is the first time a credit card is available to that same market.

According to the Wall Street Journal:

The new Bank of America program is open to people who lack both a Social Security number and a credit history, as long as they have held a checking account with the bank for three months without an overdraft. Most adults in the U.S. who don’t have a Social Security number are undocumented immigrants.

The program was tested by Bank of AMerica last year at 5 bank branches in Los Angeles, and is now expanded to 51 branches in the area. It is no coincidence that Los Angeles County has the largest concentration of illegal immigrants in the United States.

The credit card in this new program has a high interest rate and an up-front fee. A $500 credit limit would require $99 up front, which would be refunded after 3 to 6 months if the user of the card has stayed within teh limit and made payments on time.

Bank of America has responded to criticism of the program by saying that they are meeting the needs of an untapped group of potential customers. According to the Wall Street Journal:

“These people are coming here for quality of life, and they deserve somebody to give them a chance to achieve that quality of life,” says Brian Tuite, the bank’s director of Latin America card operations and one of the architects of the program.

But the truth is that Bank of America is selling to a group of people who are violating U.S. law, plain and simple.

Another miracle of modern technology, aimed at making life easier for us, may likely be the new target of fraudsters.

The new service was unveiled yesterday in Barcelona. Mobile phone users can now send money with the push of a few buttons. This is a win-win, as phone users can quickly transfer money, and banks are reducing their per-transaction costs.

With this new system, a mobile phone user “loads cash” onto the phone, and orders it to be sent to another mobile phone. The recipient receives a text message that money has arrived. Now this may sound odd, but remember several years ago when the idea of “emailing money” via PayPal sounded strange? Now PayPal is an extremely popular service that is widely-used by millions.

This new service will be particularly beneficial to people who wish to send money internationally.

I wonder what the first fraud scam involving this service will be???

Chris Silvey has a thought-provoking post about the long hours demanded of accounting and auditing professionals in the United States. The job adds up to long hours and work that can be mundane. This leads to the annual exodus from auditing firms in August – after a nice, slow summer and prior to the crazy “audit busy season.” (Yes, I’ve been there and done that. And not so coincidentally, I made my decision to leave in August!)

It’s all a blur to me, but isn’t this the same goof who said lied that he’d hold the line on taxes when he was campaigning for re-election?

Diamond Jim is proposing that there be a new tax on oil companies, one that the companies would be prohibited from passing on to consumers. According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Jimmy-Boy says:

It seems to me that these companies that have had such a big killing – and this is money that has come directly out of the pockets of the people of Wisconsin and the people of the United States – they ought to be doing their share to help with the infrastructure needs.

He’s proposing that the new tax be 2.5% per barrel of oil sold in Wisconsin. That would currently be about $1.50 per barrel. Jimmy plans on using the new tax money for highways and other transportation projects. The total collections are estimated at $114.8 million in the first year and $157.3 million in the second year.

And if any oil companies try to make consumers pay the tax, the executives could end up in jail for up to six months. The Wisconsin Department of Revenue would audit oil companies to make sure they’re not violating the proposed law.

Does anyone else think that this is just plain stupid?

Oh, and this is in addition to raising driver’s license fees. I know. It’s a “fee” so it’s not really a tax, right? *wink*

Happy Monday… And if you’re in the Midwest, happy SNOWY Monday! On with the carnival!

Scott Allen at about.com does a very interesting piece about a dispute over Cuppy’s Coffee and Java Jo’s, two separate companies that apparently caused some confusion among franchisees. Scott’s post brings to light issues surrounding blogs and free speech.

Personal Finance Advice is discussing GM’s botched “$1.99 per gallon” fuel promotion. Apparently GM sold some cars with a promotion that guaranteed to pay for gas costs over $1.99 per gallon. It sounds like some people have had nothing but headaches trying to collect on the program!

Maureen Rogers details her run-in with a typical email scam.. the kind where you’re going to receive a zillion dollars just for helping someone move some money. Riiiiiiiight…. thanks for the laugh Maureen.

SoxFirst mentions discusses morality in business…How do you get a handle on moral behavior in business? Is it about corporate social responsibility? More stringent anti-fraud measures? Better auditors? Better treatment of employees? And what role do business schools play?

Mortgage Lowdown blogs about a couple indicted on charges related to mortgage fraud. They helped applicants falsify documentation to get approved for mortgages… so the couple could get fat real estate commissions.

Milwaukee Police were going after prostitutes advertising on Craig’s List. What a surprise when they arrested this woman.

Milwaukee police recently started busting people involved in prostitution by cruising Craig’s List. One of the local television stations did a ride-along, and was surprised at one of the women arrested that night.

Annie Schrader is an ex-con who claimed to be reformed. Schrader had done prison time on felony charges of keeping a house of prostitution and maintining a drug-trafficking place, in addition to two misdemeanors related to drug posession.

For the last three years, she ran a non-profit organization called StretcherBearers Ministries that helped female convicts. The orgnaization had a controact with Milwaukee County to provide services through a federally funded program called Wiser Choice.

Apple’s Steve Jobs has appealed to the recording industry in his “Thoughts on Music” to allow companies to sell music without digital antipiracy protection. Essentially, music that is now sold in a digital format is not standardized and therefore cannot be played on “just any” digital music player. Jobs says that the protection on the music really isn’t solving piracy, so it ought to be removed to allow users to play music on a variety of players. That would help expand the market for digital music.

The founders of YouTube, the video sharing website purchased by Google, have had a very serious payday. Yesterday Google filed a registration statement with the SEC, disclosing that founders Steve Chen and Chad Hurley each received well over $300 million of Google stock. The third co-founder of YouTube, Jawed Karim go about $65 million of Google stock.

At the time of the acquisition, YouTube had been in existence for 19 months and had 67 employees. Its value apparently came from the fact that consumers were viewing videos thorugh the service over 100 million times a day.