Tax Fraud

June 6, 2018

Utah financial advisor Henry Brock was sentenced to 72 months in prison for marketing and selling fraudulent a tax-avoidance and investment strategy to clients, and causing his clients to file false tax returns; over an eight year period, Brock promised investors his “IRA Exit Strategy” would allow them to avoid paying tax on IRA withdrawals. The scheme caused investors to lose over $10 million, and resulted in more than $1 million in tax losses. USAO DUT

June 6, 2018

Jaquon Mucsarney was sentenced to 12 years in prison for devising a scheme in which he created roughly 50 fake businesses for which he filed fictitious U.S. corporate income tax returns; Mucsarney used stolen names and social security numbers to obtain EIN numbers for some of the businesses, he used his own, his wife’s, and his mother’s SSNs for others. From 2011 to 2016, Mucsarney fraudulently claimed more than $2 million in refunds and ultimately collected more than $300,000. USAO DCO

April 3, 2018

John Anderson Rankin, who owned a software company and a number of restaurant and entertainment businesses in Circleville, Ohio, was sentenced to five months in prison and ordered to pay restitution of $7.1 million for failure to account for and pay over employment taxes to the IRS and other tax charges.  DOJ

February 15, 2018

A Massachusetts temporary employment agency operator pleaded guilty in Boston federal district court to an indictment charging him with conspiring to defraud the government, failing to pay over employment taxes and obstructing the internal revenue laws. According to the indictment and statements provided in Court, Tien Chau ran an employment agency that provided temporary labor to businesses in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. The agency operated under at least four different names: Central Boston Staffing Services, Metro Boston Staffing Services, General Staffing Inc. and Kim’s Staffing Inc. Chau and others used nominees to conceal their ownership of the business. From 2006 through 2011, Chau and others conspired to conceal the agency’s total number of employees from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to lower the staffing agencies’ employment tax liabilities. Chau attempted to hide the size of their workforce from the IRS by paying most of the employees cash under the table and filing false employment tax returns that both underreported the number of employees and omitted wages paid in cash. Chau and others in the conspiracy allegedly cashed over $11 million in client checks at a check cashing facility in Worcester and used the staffing agency’s site supervisors, office manager and drivers to pay the employees in cash. DOJ

February 13, 2018

A Las Vegas, Nevada, tax return preparer pleaded guilty to filing fraudulent tax returns. According to documents and information provided to the court, from 2009 through 2015, Ofelia Ronquillo, 62, prepared fraudulent income tax returns for clients through a business known as A.R. Financial LLC and later AJRC Tax Services, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Ronquillo included false items on her clients’ tax returns, including bogus charitable contributions, capital losses, and unreimbursed employee expenses—such as meals and transportation expenses, as well as claimed inflated refunds to which her clients were not entitled. Ronquillo admitted that she caused a tax loss of more than $2.7 million. DOJ

February 6, 2018

Andre Bernard of Mount Kisco, NY was sentenced to 87 months in federal prison for conspiracy to commit wire fraud, making false statements related to the Clean Air Act, and his participation in a multi-state scheme to defraud biodiesel buyers and U.S. taxpayers by fraudulently selling biodiesel credits and fraudulently claiming tax credits. As part of his sentence, the court also entered a money judgment in the amount of $10.5 million, the amount of proceeds of the charged criminal conduct that the defendant personally received. Two accounts already seized from the defendant worth in excess of $1.5 million will be credited against the money judgment. DOJ

January 25, 2018

A Dover, Massachusetts, insurance broker was sentenced to eight months in prison for filing false tax returns. According to the evidence presented at trial, Anthony J. May, 62, owned and operated Clients First Financial Insurance Agency LLC, through which May sold life insurance products as an insurance broker, and Advantage Life Settlements LLC, through which he served as a broker for insured individuals seeking to sell their personal life insurance policies to third party investors. May operated his businesses out of an office suite in Hingham, where he also leased office space to other independent insurance agents. May filed false 2006 through 2009 individual income tax returns that did not report more than $738,000 in income that he received from insurance commissions, brokerage fees, and office rental payments. DOJ

January 24, 2018

A Las Vegas, Nevada, business owner was sentenced to 12 months and one day in prison for evading payment of employment taxes and penalties. Maria Larkin, 55, was convicted of tax evasion by a federal jury in Las Vegas in June. According to the evidence presented at trial, Larkin owned and operated Five Star Home Health Care Inc. (Five Star). Larkin was responsible for collecting and paying over income, social security, and Medicare tax withheld from her employees’ wages. From 2004 through 2009, Larkin did not pay over to the Internal Revenue Service the employment taxes she withheld. As a result, the IRS assessed trust fund recovery penalties (TFRPs) against Larkin for these years, which made her personally liable for the unpaid employment taxes. Larkin concealed her assets and income to evade paying the TFRPs and to obstruct the IRS’s efforts to collect the outstanding taxes. She lied to the IRS regarding her ability to pay, changed the name of her business, placed her business in the name of a nominee, had her employees cash checks for her, and bought a home in the name of a nominee. In total, Larkin evaded more than $1.6 million in taxes. DOJ