In Touch and in jail; end of the ride; took a powder; and other highlights of recent tax cases.
Dallas: Preparer Alma Jean Gilbert has been sentenced to 42 months in prison and ordered to pay $11,991,265 in restitution for filing fraudulent income tax returns.
Since 2011, Gilbert, who pleaded guilty in October, has owned and operated In Touch Tax Solutions in Dallas. In 2016, she opened an additional office in Mesquite and hired employees to prepare and file returns on behalf of clients.
Between 2012 and 2017, she prepared and caused to be filed hundreds of fraudulent returns for clients. The fraudulent returns contained materially false credits and deductions, including false education credits, fuel tax credits and business losses.
Las Cruces, New Mexico: Sandra Roberto, 42, has pleaded guilty to wire fraud and fraudulent returns stemming from an embezzlement scheme.
From 2011 to 2018 Roberto used her position in the accounting department for Mesilla Valley Transportation to embezzle more than a million dollars. As MVT’s primary contact with two third-party payment processors, Roberto deposited checks ranging from $400 to $975 into her personal bank account. Upon discovering her embezzlement scheme, MVT fired her in 2018.
She also falsified her income tax returns. For example, in 2017 Roberto embezzled $217,260 but only reported $31,932 as taxable income.
She faces up to 20 years in prison.
Tampa, Florida: Samuel and Julee Lawrence have pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to defraud the U.S. and to impeding and impairing the IRS from ascertaining and collecting employment tax.
Samuel Lawrence owned and managed Innovative Marine Structures, a marine construction company. His wife Julee Lawrence handled payroll and other duties for the company. From 2014 through 2016, the couple conspired to impede the IRS by cashing large corporate checks at a local bank and using those funds to pay certain employees of their company in cash, failing to report the employment of those employees on federal tax forms.
The couple caused their payroll company to fail to report and pay to the IRS the required federal employment taxes, a total of some $238,483.
Each of the Lawrences faces a maximum of five years in federal prison.
Guilford, Vermont: Businessman Christopher Parker has been sentenced to time served, to be followed by three years of supervised release including 200 hours of community service following his conviction for tax evasion.
Parker, sole proprietor of a building restoration business, understated his income to his preparer over several years between 2014 and 2018. His business generated approximately $3.35 million in gross revenues during that period but he reported only some $2.5 million in gross revenues to the IRS, resulting in a federal tax loss of some $281,000.
Prior to his sentencing, Parker had paid in full the federal income taxes due. His supervised release also requires him to cooperate with the IRS on any delinquent or additional taxes, interest or penalties.
Madison, Wisconsin: Businesswoman Mary Lavine, 65, has pleaded guilty to conspiring to defraud the IRS and to filing a false corporate income tax return.
Lavine ran her company, Bullseye Inc., with a partner who is now deceased; the company operated as a coin-operated music and amusement game vending business and contracted with bar owners to place video game machines in their bars. Bullseye split the profits with the bar owners, and different bar owners had different profit-sharing agreements with Bullseye.
Lavine worked with certain bar owners to skim the cash receipts generated from the games and not report all the cash receipts to the IRS or to the state department of revenue. This caused Bullseye to evade its own corporate income taxes, as well as the Wisconsin sales taxes and income taxes for Bullseye and its bar owners.
From 2015 to 2018, Bullseye evaded $3,028,930 in federal and state taxes.
At her hearing, Lavine claimed to have gone along with the scheme of her partner because he’d promised to make her majority owner of the business but then reneged. The judge reiterated that she was still responsible for her crime.
Lavine has been sentenced to a year and a day in prison, fined $75,000 and ordered to pay $834,769.65 in restitution to the IRS and $1,927,852.56 to the Wisconsin Department of Revenue. She was also ordered to serve a two-year term of supervised release following her prison term.
Five others have pleaded guilty as part of this investigation and Lavine is the fourth sentenced. So far, the conspirators have been ordered to pay a total of $3,807,566 in restitution.
Jacksonville, Florida: Preparer Kenyan Shondre Scott has pleaded guilty to aiding and assisting another person with the filing of a fraudulent return and to filing a fraudulent tax return on his own behalf.
In preparing income tax returns for others, Scott reported false information, including false claims for deductible expenses and losses. Scott pleaded guilty to preparing and filing a fraudulent 2014 return on which he represented that the taxpayer had a business with $425 in income and $4,552 in expenses. He also represented that the taxpayer was entitled to a general business credit of $2,850. Scott knew that the taxpayer was a wage-earning employee of a corporation and did not operate a business in 2014.
The IRS issued a refund of $2,734 to the taxpayer when the taxpayer should have owed additional tax of $738.
Scott also prepared and filed a fraudulent 2014 return for himself in which he represented that his filing status was single, that he had earned wages, salaries and tips of $12,875, that he had net business income of $28,467, that he was entitled to a general business credit of $3,500 and that he had federal income tax withheld of $4,532. Scott knew that his filing status should have been either MFJ or MFS, that he had earned no wages, salaries or tips and that his net business income was some $297,110, that he was not entitled to a general business credit and that he had had no federal income tax withheld. The IRS issued a $50 refund to him when he should have owed additional tax of $108,033.
Scott faces a maximum of three years in federal prison on each charge. He has also agreed to pay $553,403 in restitution to the IRS for the tax loss caused by all of the offenses in the indictment, including those to which he did not plead guilty. Sentencing has not been set.
Lindenhurst, New York: Car wash owner Nicholas Pascullo has pleaded guilty to tax evasion.
Pascullo operated the car wash and detailing business H2O Car Wash & Exotic Detailing and from 2012 to 2017 attempted to evade income and employment taxes. He filed false partnership and individual income tax returns with the IRS that underreported the gross receipts earned by H2O and the flow-through income received by Pascullo and his partners.
He also concealed assets and sources of income by manipulating H2O’s books and records, including its POS system, by failing to file certain reports with the IRS and by making unreported cash payments to employees and to himself. In 2012 and 2013, Pascullo filed 941s that underreported H2O’s payroll tax liabilities for these years, including the extent of its cash payroll.
Pascullo caused a total federal tax loss of some $315,000.
He faces a maximum of five years as well as a period of supervised release, restitution and monetary penalties.
Columbus, Ohio: Preparer Tiffany Gravely of Powder Springs, Georgia, formerly of Columbus, has pleaded guilty to filing at least 51 false or fraudulent returns for 19 clients in Ohio and Georgia between 2013 and 2019.
She prepared and filed income tax returns containing deductions for businesses that did not exist, false business expenses and fictitious expenses including charitable deductions.
Gravely faces up to three years in prison plus fines and must pay $257,609 in restitution.
