DisLoyal; six is enough; prime fraud; and other highlights of recent tax cases.
Riverside, California: Tax preparer Andrew Zepada Hansack, 39, has pleaded guilty to federal charges for knowingly filing thousands of phony returns that caused more than $3 million in tax losses.
Starting in January 2015, Hansack prepared personal income tax returns at AJ Loyal Income Tax Service, filing returns for some clients that included false itemized deductions. These included that the clients paid mortgage interest for their homes when, as Hansack knew, they did not own homes. He also knowingly claimed false medical expenses, sales tax and gifts by cash or check.
For the tax years 2015 through 2019, Hansack filed some 2,533 returns with false deductions on behalf of his clients. The loss to the IRS was some $3.6 million.
He has agreed to pay a fine of at least $50,000 and to a permanent ban on his helping to prepare returns for anyone other than himself or his spouse.
Newtown, Connecticut: Business owner Thomas R. Saint, 67, has pleaded guilty to one count of federal tax evasion.
Saint is the sole owner of Tom Saint Painting and Remodeling, a Schedule C business engaged in painting and home renovation services. From 2013 through 2019, he attempted to evade assessment of federal taxes by cashing business checks instead of depositing them into his business bank account, depositing cash and business checks into his personal account and failing to inform his tax preparer.
For the 2013 through 2019 tax years, Saint failed to report $2,163,645 in gross receipts, resulting in a tax loss to the government of $791,500.
He has agreed to cooperate with the IRS to pay all outstanding taxes, interest and penalties. Tax evasion carries a maximum of five years in prison. Sentencing is May 22.
Detroit: Former resident Sameerah Marrell (a.k.a. Sameerah Anderson, a.k.a. Sameerah Pickett, a.k.a. Crème, a.k.a. Loren Boyd) has been sentenced to 54 months in prison for a tax fraud where she sought to cheat the IRS and the treasuries of six states out of more than $27 million in fraudulent refunds.
Marrell pleaded guilty in January to mail fraud, wire fraud and committing an offense while on bond.
The scheme began in 2014 and continued through last April. Marrell and her accomplices defrauded the IRS and the treasury departments of Minnesota, Georgia, Maryland, Arizona, Connecticut and Colorado. The conspirators filed 122 false and fictitious income tax returns for estates and trusts and numerous state income tax returns, seeking more than $13,690,341 from the IRS and $14,730,365 from the states in refunds.
These federal and state returns contained various false and material assertions, most notably that the IRS and state taxing agencies had withheld large amounts of income tax from the trusts and that those trusts were entitled to large refunds. The IRS and the state taxing agencies had withheld nothing from these trusts and Marrell and her accomplices were entitled to no refund of any kind. Before discovering the fraud, the IRS paid out more than $5,539,049 and the state agencies paid out $2,972,588.93.
She also committed some of these offenses after being arrested on a criminal complaint charging her with, among other things, making false claims to the IRS based on some of the conduct in the fraud.
She was also ordered to serve three years of supervised release after her release from federal custody and pay the remaining restitution owed, $7,979,041.71. The restitution has been reduced by money, cars and jewelry seized by the federal government and the states from Marrell.
Miami: A federal court has entered permanent injunctions against Rudy Aly, Rhonda Hudge, Cindy Odige and TUPS Tax, barring them from preparing federal returns for others and owning or operating a tax prep business.
Aly was enjoined after failing to respond to the federal government's complaint. Hudge, Odige and TUPS Tax consented to their injunctions.
The United States alleged that Aly and Hudge prepared returns that included fraudulent claims for the Earned Income Tax Credit, often based on fabricated business income or expenses or bogus household help income. The complaint also alleges that Aly and Hudge prepared returns that falsely claimed credits for residential solar energy improvements and education expenses. Odige signed and filed fraudulent returns prepared by Aly, the complaint also alleges.
The court also ordered Aly to disgorge $406,071.43, representing the proceeds that he received for preparing false or fraudulent returns from 2018 to 2020. The court ordered Hudge to disgorge $15,562.75 and Odige and TUPS Tax to disgorge $48,000 based on their settlement agreements.
Hudge and Odige did not admit to the allegations in the complaint but agreed to the injunctions and to pay disgorgement.
Old Saybrook, Connecticut: Dimitrios Kassimis (a.k.a. Jimmy Kassimis) has been sentenced to 15 months of imprisonment, to be followed by three years of supervised release, for tax evasion.
Kassimis owns and operates various entities related to his construction business, including Allstate Contracting Group and JRC Renovations. Between 2018 and 2021, Kassimis received substantial income from his businesses but did not file personal or business federal income tax returns and/or employment tax returns for his businesses.
Investigation revealed that he had no personal bank accounts. He paid all his personal expenses through his business bank accounts and made cash withdrawals from the business accounts at casinos. He also cashed checks payable to his businesses at a check-cashing business in New York and failed to report that income and did not issue 1099s or W-2s to his employees, paying at least some employees in cash.
Tax loss to the IRS for the 2018 through 2021 was $233,086.87. Kassimis, who previously pleaded guilty, was ordered to cooperate with the IRS to pay all outstanding tax liabilities.
Anderson, Indiana: Bookkeeper Carla Burke has been sentenced to 28 months in prison after pleading guilty to wire fraud and falsifying tax documents.
Burke had served as the Anderson Community School Corporation Food Service Department's bookkeeper since 2007. She maintained the financial records, bank accounts and vendor invoices for the department and generated checks for payments to vendors.
From 2014 to 2019, she issued checks in the name of ACSC Food Service to herself as the payee and then cashed the checks at her bank. She recorded that the payee was a vendor rather than herself, then cashed the checks and used the money for her own expenditures, including gambling.
Burke failed to report some $225,381 in income derived from the checks on five years of income tax returns, then lied to federal agents about her conduct. Burke cleared some 312 fraudulent checks totaling $976,773.29 in losses. The scheme was uncovered during an Indiana State Board of Accounts audit.
She will also be supervised by the U.S. Probation Office for three years following her release from prison and was ordered to pay $976,772.39 in restitution to Anderson Community School Corporation and $141,190 to the IRS.
Largo, Maryland: Tax preparer Ronald Eugene Watson (a.k.a. Sabir Muhammad) has been convicted of preparing false returns for clients.
He owned and operated the tax prep business SW Accounting Associates and from 2015 through 2017 prepared and filed federal returns for clients reporting false information, including fictitious or overstated business expenses and sham unreimbursed employee expenses to inflate refunds.
Watson varied his prep fees depending on the amount of the refund requested, with fees ranging from some $500 to $1,500.
Sentencing is June 13. He faces a maximum of three years in prison for each false return count, as well as a period of supervised release and monetary penalties.
