Title

Fraudulent Tax Refunds: The Notorious Career of Harriette Walters

Source of Publication

Current Issues in Auditing

Abstract

Harriette Walters embezzled more than $48 million from the District of Columbia by processing fraudulent real estate tax refunds. This paper describes the Walters scheme and discusses, from the perspective of the COSO framework, internal control weaknesses that enabled the fraud to go undetected for more than 20 years. While this analysis of the Walters fraud should be of interest to both accounting academics and audit professionals, it should be particularly helpful to students, fi nancial managers, and inexperienced auditors in understanding the importance of effective internal controls for preventing and detecting fraud in a wide variety of organizational settings.

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-1-2011

DOI

10.2308/ciia.2011.5.1.A23

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