By Jennifer Liberto, CNN Money, May 24, 2011

WASHINGTON  -- Thousands of contractors who got stimulus money to do such things as build roads and provide social services owe more than $750 million in back taxes, a federal investigation has found.

More than $24 billion in stimulus money went to some 3,700 contractors who still owe the federal government taxes, according to the report released Tuesday by the General Accountability Office, Congress' watchdog agency. Tax cheats accounted for 5% of 80,000 contractors who got stimulus dollars, the report said.

The investigative report is the focus of a Senate hearing Tuesday afternoon.

"It is a matter of basic fairness that those who take government money should be required to pay their taxes like everyone else," said Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat who runs the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which called for the review. "That such a huge amount of the stimulus money went to known tax cheats should be a wake up call for Congress.".....