On February 24, 2010, in Miami, Fla., Jesus Mena was sentenced to 12 months and one day in prison, to be followed by one year of supervised release, and ordered to pay $391,714 in restitution to the Internal Revenue Service. Mena pleaded guilty on December 14, 2009 to filing a false U.S. Income Tax Return for an S Corporation. According to court documents, Mena was the owner of Destiny Erectors, Inc., a construction company in Miami, Florida, that provided labor for the installation of steel concrete reinforcing bars.
Posts Tagged ‘prison’
Miami Resident Sentenced for Filing a False Tax Return
Thursday, October 20th, 2011Government Contractor Sentenced for Failing to File Tax Returns for Four Years
Monday, September 26th, 2011On December 20, 2010, in Baltimore, Md., Joseph Van Gieson, of Annapolis, was sentenced to 12 months in prison, of which six months is to be served in home detention, followed by one year of supervised release and ordered to pay a $4,000 fine. According to court documents, since 2003, he worked as a self-employed consultant for the United States Department of Justice and the Environmental Protection Agency. From 2003 through 2006, he and his wife received gross income of $851,747, and incurred a tax liability of $214,794. Van Gieson requested, and was granted, extensions for filing his federal tax returns for years 2003 through 2005, but he did not file a tax return for any of those years.
Indiana Construction Company Owner Sentenced for Tax Evasion
Monday, September 19th, 2011On July 1, 2010, in Indianapolis, Ind., David W. Pittman, of Greenwood, was sentenced to 12 months in prison, 18 months’ home detention and two years of supervised release following his plea of guilty to income tax evasion. He must also cooperate with the IRS in determining his income tax liabilities. Pittman, the owner/operator of Pittman Framing, a residential construction framing company, failed to file income tax returns for the years 1994 through 1998. The IRS assessed the income tax owed by Pittman for each of these years, but he took steps to evade the payment of these assessed taxes. The total income tax deficiency owed by Pittman is approximately $497,000. Pittman also failed to file income tax returns for the years 2003 through 2005 and 2007. The total income owed by Pittman for those years approximately $48,000.
You Can Go to Jail if You Haven’t Filed Your Taxes
Monday, August 22nd, 2011
Good To Know:…You Can Go to Jail if You Haven’t Filed Your Taxes OR If You’ve Filed Your Taxes Inaccurately
Not filing your taxes is considered a crime by the IRS. You can receive one year of prison time for each year that you don’t file. Procrastinating only makes your chances of doing jail time that much worse.
The IRS doesn’t take kindly to those it has to “chase down”.…And they will eventually chase you down. It doesn’t matter if it’s been a few years and it seems like you’ve somehow “slipped through the cracks”.
Two Defendants Sentenced in $1.2 Million Money Laundering Scheme
Monday, August 8th, 2011On October 26, 2010, in Charlotte, N.C., Donald Eugene Bess, of Bessemer City, was sentenced to 24 months in prison and ordered to pay $549,789 in restitution. On June 7, 2010, Ray Eugene Rohm, of Dallas, North Carolina, was sentenced to 24 months in prison and ordered to pay $842,288 in restitution. In addition, each defendant was ordered to forfeit all property involved in the money laundering conspiracy. According to court documents, Rohm owned and operated Rohm Enterprises, a window treatment services business and Bess operated a body shop business named Bess Used Car Wrecker Service. From in or about April 2001 to in or about January 2007, both deposited into their respective business accounts $1.2 million in fraudulently obtained checks generated by a former claims manager of Farm Bureau Insurance. Although they’re aware that the checks were obtained through an insurance fraud scheme, they deposited the checks on his behalf & collected a fee in return for conducting the financial transaction.
Illinois Man Sentenced for Income Tax Evasion
Monday, July 25th, 2011On September, 30, 2010 in Fairview Heights, Ill., Orvil Hassebrock was sentenced to 36 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release and ordered to pay restitution and fines of more than $1.71 million for failing to file tax returns. According to court documents, Hassebrock was convicted on April 29, 2010, for willfully attempting to evade and defeat the assessment and payment of income tax for 2004 and willful failure to file an income tax return resulting in a tax loss to the IRS of nearly $594,000. Hassebrock’s restitution includes back taxes, interest, fines and a special assessment.
Florida Prisoners Lead the Nation in IRS Payment Scam
Monday, July 4th, 2011Inmates Received $39.1 Million by Filing Fraudulent Tax Returns…
Recently, Hillsborough County jails have been coming down hard on inmates that have been attempting to claim tax refunds for themselves by way of stolen identity. Several pages of employee tax information, which contained annual earnings information, SSAN (Social Security Account Number), and stacks of IRS Form 1040 EZs were found in their facilities.
Officials have said this has been an ongoing problem for years in state prisons , and now it’s trickling down into the county jails. A prisoner by the name of Brian Singletery was recently transferred to a Hillsborough County for an appeal, where he taught his new fellow inmates how they could easily mislead the IRS into believing they were different individuals.
Singletery had an entire instruction manual, which included detailed calculations, tax identification numbers, and instructions on how to steal the information.
Officials from various jails in Hillsborough County have caught 12 inmates thus far, but it is hard to find the alleged unless they are caught in the act.
It’s tough to gather evidence until long after the damage has already been done.
So officials presented the information to the IRS, who, in turn, seemed to show little interest. Amounts are not huge, but dollars add up over time, and funds are then deposited into fake accounts. Inmates will also pad their personal canteen money in jail (money typically used for personal items that are typically capped out at specified amounts). That’s your hard-earned tax dollars at work.
Today it’s getting tough for anyone to get a job, and we are all out busting our backs while these guys are using another scam to skim more off Uncle Sam.
They have been convicted of crimes already, now they are taking up already valuable tax payer space in state prisons, and then they arrive at county jails to continue suckling off the government and getting refunds as if they were rewards for doing time.
Former Detroit Police Officer Sentenced on Tax Evasion
Monday, June 27th, 2011On August 5, 2009, in Detroit, Mich., Vincent Crockett, a former Detroit Police Officer, was sentenced to 16 months imprisonment, followed by two years supervised release. Crockett was ordered to pay $14,547 in restitution to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and cooperate in filing accurate 2007 tax returns. According to court records, in 2007, Crockett received over $72,000 in income from criminal activities. He later made cash deposits with some of the proceeds into different bank accounts in amounts less than $10,000, in order to avoid the filing of currency transaction reports. Crockett knew that this income was taxable and he failed to report it to the IRS on his 2007 federal income tax return.
Felons Scam IRS for Millions in 2009
Wednesday, May 4th, 2011A federal audit revealed that in 2009 inmates received nearly forty million dollars in tax refunds by filing fraudulent tax returns with the IRS. Florida, California, and Georgia account for roughly half of the total amount refunded. This is due in part to their large prison populations.
Though the audit revealed the fraud, it can take years for the IRS to recover the funds. A 2008 law was passed to make it easier to track this type of fraud, but legal questions and challenges have slowed its implementation.
Most prisoners do not earn enough to have to file tax returns, while others earn income on outside investments that do allow them to qualify for legitimate refunds. This can make it difficult to sort the fraudulent refunds from the legitimate ones.
Tax fraud by prisoners is on the rise up from $13.1 million in 2004. Though this type of fraud is nothing new, the tools prisoners are using have become more sophisticated.
The fraudulent returns are filed either using the information of other prisoners, or outside victims of identity theft. They then file false returns that can result in thousands of dollars per refund.
Newer technology has made this easier. Felons can gather information on bankrupt businesses online and list them as employers. It is difficult for the IRS to verify reported earnings once a business has gone under.
Most of the scams are run by small groups of prisoners and often result in tens of thousands of dollars. In an effort to cut down on these types of scams a 2008 law allowed the IRS to share information with state and federal prison officials.
The law has not gone into effect due to questions surrounding whether the prisons could disclose the tax information to prisoners and their lawyers.
IRS and Prison officials continue to try to better coordinate their efforts to catch the false returns. One of the challenges for the IRS is maintaining an accurate record of current prisoners, though plans for increased data sharing are on the drawing board.
Indiana Construction Company Owner Sentenced for Tax Evasion
Wednesday, March 9th, 2011On July 1, 2010, in Indianapolis, Ind., David W. Pittman, of Greenwood, was sentenced to 12 months in prison, 18 months home detention and two years of supervised release following his plea of guilty to income tax evasion. He must also cooperate with the IRS in determining his income tax liabilities. Pittman, the owner/operator of Pittman Framing, a residential construction framing company, failed to file income tax returns for the years 1994 through 1998. The IRS assessed the income tax owed by Pittman for each of these years, but he took steps to evade the payment of these assessed taxes. The total income tax deficiency owed by Pittman is approximately $497,000. Pittman also failed to file income tax returns for the years 2003 through 2005, and 2007. The total income owed by Pittman for those years is approximately $48,000.