A former IRS employee pleaded guilty to tax evasion after the IRS accused him of filing false tax returns and providing fabricated records in an effort to obstruct a tax audit.
Wayne M. Garvin, 57, of Columbia, South Carolina, was a longtime IRS employee who most recently worked as a supervisory associate advocate with the Taxpayer Advocate Service in Philadelphia. Between 2012 and 2016, he prepared and filed individual returns on which he claimed false deductions and expenses associated with rental properties he owned, along with fictitious real estate taxes on his personal residence and made-up charitable contributions, according to the Department of Justice.
On his 2013 return, he deducted nearly $16,000 in false expenses associated with his work with the U.S. Army Reserves. But while Garvin was formerly a member of the Army Reserves, he didn’t perform any reservist duty in 2013 and wasn’t entitled to deduct any expenses related to that employment, according to prosecutors. Garvin admitted causing a loss to the IRS of over $74,000.
After the IRS started auditing Garvin’s 2013 and 2014 tax returns, he tried to obstruct the audit by submitting fictitious documents to the IRS, according to prosecutors. To justify the deductions and expenses claimed on his returns, he created and submitted receipts from a church, invoices from a contractor and a letter from the Army to the IRS auditors, according to prosecutors. After finding out he was under criminal investigation, he then sent some of the same documents to the IRS’s Criminal Investigation division.
Sentencing is scheduled for July 6. Garvin faces up to five years in prison, along with a period of supervised release, restitution and monetary penalties.
