Tax Season 2019

Thursday, December 20, 2012

DOJ – Tax News: JUSTICE DEPARTMENT SUES NEVADA CPA TO BLOCK PROMOTION OF ALLEGED TAX FRAUD SCHEME

Las Vegas-Based CPA, His Wife and “Highly-Specialized Paralegal” Allegedly Promote Tax-Fraud Scheme

The United States has sued a Las Vegas-based CPA and two others to stop an alleged tax-fraud scheme, the Justice Department announced today. Named as defendants in the civil injunction suit were CPA Wayne Reeves, Reeves’ wife, Diane Vaoga, and their alleged co-promoter, James Stoll. The government complaint was filed last month in Las Vegas with the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada. Announcement of the court filing was delayed until Reeves was served with court papers this week.

The government complaint alleges that Reeves, Vaoga and Stoll, acting through various e

ntities, sell a sham-trust scheme that improperly reduces or eliminates customers’ reported federal income taxes. According to the government complaint, Reeves, Vaoga and Stoll maintain offices in Las Vegas and Wyoming, and promote their scheme to customers throughout the United States. The suit also seeks to bar the defendants from preparing federal income tax returns and to require them to turn over their customer lists to the government.

According to the government complaint, Reeves, touting his experience as a CPA, solicits customers to participate in the defendants’ illegal income/asset sheltering scheme. According to the complaint Stoll refers to himself as a “highly specialized paralegal” and creates the trusts, corporations and limited-liability partnerships needed to further the scheme. Vaoga allegedly serves as an officer of one of the entities at issue. The government alleges that the defendants’ scheme “enables participants to illegally shelter income and to hide assets from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) through a series of bogus entities designed to disrupt and interfere with IRS tax assessment and collection efforts.”

The IRS lists misuse of trusts as one of its “Dirty Dozen” tax scams. The Justice Department has obtained injunctions against hundreds of tax-return preparers and tax-fraud promoters in the past decade. Information about these cases is available on the Justice Department website.

IRS Circular 230 Disclosure

Pursuant to the requirements of the Internal Revenue Service Circular 230, we inform you that, to the extent any advice relating to a Federal tax issue is contained in this communication, including in any attachments, it was not written or intended to be used, and cannot be used, for the purpose of (a) avoiding any tax related penalties that may be imposed on you or any other person under the Internal Revenue Code, or (b) promoting, marketing or recommending to another person any transaction or matter addressed in this communication.

DOJ – Tax News: FLORIDA ACCOUNTANT INDICTED FOR STEALING CLIENT MONEY INTENDED FOR IRS

An indictment was unsealed today in Fort Pierce, Fla., charging Joseph Rizzuti with one count of corruptly endeavoring to obstruct the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and four counts of wire fraud, the Justice Department and the IRS announced. The indictment was returned by a grand jury on Nov. 29, 2012.

According to the indictment, Rizzuti, the owner of Beacon Accounting Services in Palm City, Fla., interfered with the IRS’s ability to collect taxes owed by two clients, stole payments from those clients intended for the IRS, and made misrepresentations to those clients and to the IRS. Rizzuti allegedly stole approximately $265,000 from one client and approximately $23,500 from another client, money that the clients gave him to pay to the IRS.

An indictment merely alleges that crimes have been committed and the defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. If convicted, Rizzuti faces a maximum potential sentence of 20 years in prison for each of the four wire fraud counts and a maximum potential sentence of 3 years for the obstruction count. He is also subject to fines and mandatory restitution if convicted.

This case was investigated by special agents of IRS - Criminal Investigation and Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration. Trial Attorneys Justin Gelfand and Rebecca Perlmutter of the Justice Department’s Tax Division are prosecuting the case.

Additional information about the Tax Division and its enforcement efforts may be found at www.justice.gov/tax.

DOJ – Tax News: FORMER NEW JERSEY CHIROPRACTOR CHARGED IN SCHEME TO EXTINGUISH DEBT AND TO OBTAIN FRAUDULENT IRS TAX REFUNDS

A federal grand jury in Trenton, N.J., returned an indictment charging David Moleski with 14 counts of mail fraud, one count of wire fraud, one count of corruptly impeding the due administration of the Internal Revenue laws and three counts of filing false claims for tax refunds, the Justice Department and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced today.

According to the indictment, Moleski attempted to extinguish both public and private debts by mailing to creditors fake financial instruments, entitled “secured promissory notes,” that purported to draw against non-existent accounts at the U.S. Department of the Treasury. In addition, Moleski submitted three false tax returns with the IRS, in which he claimed tax refunds of approximately $1.2 million to which he was not entitled.

An indictment is merely an allegation and the defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. If convicted on all counts, Moleski faces a maximum potential sentence of 318 years in prison.

This case was investigated by special agents of IRS - Criminal Investigation. Trial Attorneys Tino M. Lisella and Yael Epstein of the Justice Department’s Tax Division are prosecuting the case.

Additional information about the Tax Division and its enforcement efforts may be found at www.justice.gov/tax.

DOJ – Tax News: FORMER HEBER CITY, UTAH RESIDENT CONVICTED OF FILING FALSE CLAIMS FOR TAX REFUNDS TOTALING MORE THAN $2.2 MILLION

April J. Rampton, 41, formerly of Heber City, Utah, was convicted yesterday in U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City of nine counts of filing false claims for income tax refunds, the Justice Department and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced. Rampton, who was indicted on Sept. 14, 2011, was released following the verdict. She is scheduled to be sentenced before U.S. District Judge Dee Benson on Feb. 27, 2013. The jury was unable to reach a verdict on six similar counts.

According to the indictment and the proof at trial, Rampton prepared at least nine false claims for tax refunds on behalf of others. The total amount of false tax refunds claimed for the counts of conviction was more than $2.2 million.

The evidence at trial further established that Rampton used false IRS Forms 1099-OID with fictitious amounts of income and withholdings as the basis for the false claims for tax refund.

For each false claim conviction, Rampton faces a maximum potential sentence of five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000 or twice the gross gain or loss caused by the offense.

Kathryn Keneally, Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department’s Tax Division, commended the special agents of IRS Criminal Investigation who investigated the case, and Tax Division Trial Attorneys Michael Romano and Stuart Wexler, who prosecuted the case.

Bogus refund claims based on false Forms 1099-OID is one of the IRS’s “Dirty Dozen” tax scams for 2012.

DOJ – Tax News: LAS VEGAS ATTORNEY SENTENCED FOR TAX FRAUD

Ian Christopherson, an attorney and resident of Las Vegas, was sentenced yesterday to 33 months in prison and ordered to pay $728,786 in restitution by U.S. District Judge Miranda M. Du, the Justice Department and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced. On Sept. 23, 2011, following a five day trial in Las Vegas, Christopherson was convicted of two counts of income tax evasion for his federal individual income taxes and for federal employment taxes.

According to the evidence presented at trial, from 1994 through 1998, Christopherson ran a small law firm that employed up to nine individuals. He withheld taxes from each of his employees during these years, but did not timely file employment tax returns or his own individual income tax returns. In December 1998, the defendant filed more than 30 delinquent tax returns without making a single payment, even though each of the tax returns he filed reported that he owed taxes. According to the individual income tax returns and employment tax returns that Christopherson filed, he owed the federal government a total of $175,685 in federal taxes. The total tax loss, including penalties and interest, is $728,786.

Additionally, the evidence at trial showed that Christopherson spent the next five years engaged in stalling and diversionary tactics with the IRS. The defendant serially submitted incomplete Offers in Compromise (OIC) for consideration, only to withdraw them later. He failed to disclose significant assets in the OIC, including up to $250,000. He also misrepresented his efforts to file other back tax returns as required by the IRS.

The evidence at trial further showed that in August 2002, Christopherson set up a nominee account in the state of Montana in order to conceal his assets from further collection efforts by the IRS. Christopherson made use of a bank account under the name of “Industrial Consultants,” a company owned by friends of his, which was opened solely for the purpose of assisting Christopherson in evading his taxes. Over the next five years, Christopherson used this nominee account as his own - depositing checks from clients, transferring money from his client trust account, and writing checks for personal and business expenses.

Kathryn Keneally, Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department’s Tax Division, commended the IRS-Criminal Investigation special agents who investigated the case, as well as Tax Division Assistant Chief Elizabeth C. Hadden and Assistant U.S. Attorney Kathryn C. Newman, who prosecuted the case.