The Madoff Tax Advantage, Some Good News For People Scammed Out Of Money

The Freakonomics blog has a nice article explaining that people who invested with Madoff can deduct their loses as theft, this has a more favorable tax treatment

Taxpayers who invested in Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC directly, or through a fund of funds, have a loss that is most probably categorized as a theft loss for tax purposes. This loss has a more favorable tax treatment than theft losses of personal non-business property. Theft loss is determined and applied to get you back taxes for the current year of loss and the three years prior. These losses remain available beyond that four year period, and they can be carried forward for 20 years…

Read the whole article here: http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/29/the-madoff-tax-advantage/

I am sure it won't make up for the loss completely but something is better than nothing when you are a victim of a Ponzi scheme