By Marcy Gordon
The Associated Press

WASHINGTON - Several big companies under investigation for accounting irregularities are seeking to recoup federal taxes they overpaid based on profits they inflated, a Senate aide confirmed Friday.

WorldCom, Enron, Qwest and HealthSouth are either pursuing or considering filing for tax refunds or credits for payments made on billions of dollars falsely claimed as earnings, the Senate Finance Committee aide said, confirming a report in today's Wall Street Journal.

WorldCom, which plans to emerge from bankruptcy and change its name to MCI in the fall, has already collected $300 million in refunds from the Internal Revenue Service.

A spokesman for WorldCom declined to comment. IRS spokesmen had no immediate comment.

HealthSouth, which has not decided whether to seek a refund, said that it overpaid $300 million in federal taxes because of inflated income. "Logically, if we overpaid taxes on income we didn't have, we may seek a refund," HealthSouth spokesman Andy Brimmer told the Journal.

Now-bankrupt Enron, which paid only $63 million in taxes between 1996 and 2001, is seeking tax credits, while Qwest is likely to seek a refund.

"We are not commenting other than to confirm we are in discussions with the IRS," Enron spokeswoman Karen Denne said Friday.

A Chicago-based tax attorney said corporate fraud should have no effect on the ability of companies to recoup tax overpayments. "It's not the government's money, it's the shareholders' money," Richard Lipton, the tax attorney, told the Journal.

A HealthSouth shareholders' lawsuit filed last month in U.S. District Court in Birmingham, Ala., wants any amount refunded by the IRS to go to shareholders.

Federal investigators have said HealthSouth, a provider of outpatient surgery and rehabilitation services, overstated profits by at least $2.5 billion since 1997. Accounting irregularities at WorldCom totaled nearly $11 billion, according to investigators.