Grossly underreported; unreal estate; auction closed; and other highlights of recent tax cases.
Jacksonville, Florida: Tax preparer Paul Berkins Moise has been sentenced to 35 months in prison for aiding and assisting others with the filing of fraudulent returns and for filing fraudulent returns on his own behalf.
Between 2013 and 2017, Moise, who was
He was also ordered to pay $77,929 in restitution to the United States.
Sedalia, Missouri: Businessman Duane Dixon, 59, has been sentenced to three years in prison for tax evasion.
Dixon, who pleaded guilty in February and who admitted that he failed to file returns from 1996 through 2010, hired a preparer in 2010 to do returns for 2005 to 2010 but provided this preparer with false and incomplete information.
Dixon’s returns included taxable income amounts that understated his true income, resulting in a tax due of $237,821 for tax years 2005 to 2010, with additional penalties and interest of $401,912.
Over this same time, Dixon owed $57,330 in additional taxes to the state of Missouri.
The IRS sent Dixon numerous notices of enforcement collection actions between August 2003 and July 2015. He filed bankruptcies when the IRS was attempting to assess or collect his taxes to forestall levies and seizures of his property; those cases were later dismissed by the bankruptcy court.
Dixon formed Dixon Builders LLC in February 2012. He subsequently opened bank accounts, bought and sold real estate and purchased a boat and vehicles in the company’s name. During the 2013 and 2014 tax years, he purchased nine pieces of real estate in the name of Dixon Builders. In July 2014, Dixon told an IRS revenue officer who was attempting to collect payments from him that he had no personal or business bank accounts, that he had no business such as an LLC, that he was self-employed as a handyman and had no employees and that he did not own any rental homes or have any rentals in a business or other person’s name.
When the IRS notified Dixon in January 2015 of the filing of liens against Dixon Builders assets, he transferred three properties to his adult children. Soon afterward, Dixon also acquired another property in the names of his adult children. He in fact maintained de facto ownership of the real estate.
Dixon also continued to spend money on items such as personal vehicles and motorcycles.
He was also ordered to pay $639,733 in restitution to the IRS.
Broward County, Florida: Tax preparers Nikency Alexis and Thony Guillaume have pleaded guilty to conspiring to defraud the U.S. and to preparing false returns.
Alexis owned and operated Unity Tax & Financial Services and from 2011 through at least 2016 conspired with Guillaume to defraud the IRS by preparing returns for clients that fraudulently increased refunds. The returns falsely claimed business and education expenses. Alexis also made false statements on his own personal income tax returns.
The two caused an intended federal tax loss of $2,879,078.
Sentencing for both is Nov. 30. They face a maximum of five years in prison on the conspiracy charge and three years in prison on the filing false returns charges. They also face a period of supervised release, restitution and monetary penalties.
North Miami, Florida: Resident Wesly Divers has been sentenced to 38 months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release, for his role in a tax fraud that cost the U.S. more than $450,000.
From 2012 to 2015, Divers, who pleaded guilty in June, used the stolen information of hundreds of victims to e-file fraudulent returns in their names. In several instances, he filed fraudulent returns year after year in the names of the same victims. He masked his identity through sophisticated means, including hiding his IP address from IRS servers.
Divers claimed roughly $1.5 million in tax refunds. Although the IRS stopped roughly $1 million of the fraudulent payouts, he did receive $454,121.72.
His co-conspirator, Rony Dorismond, 28, received $58,232 in federal refunds in the name of these victims.
Divers was also ordered to pay $454,121.72 in restitution. Dorismond was sentenced last year to 25 months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release, and ordered to pay $58,232 in restitution.
Pacific, Washington: Tax preparer Jean Mpouli has been convicted of 14 counts of aiding and abetting the filing of false returns.
Mpouli worked for 25 years as an aviation inspector for the Federal Aviation Administration while running a tax prep business on the side with hundreds of clients, offering services primarily to African immigrants. He falsely increased deductions for unreimbursed business expenses and educational expenses to inflate clients’ refunds. Mpouli took a percentage of the refund as his fee.
On his personal tax returns, Mpouli hid more than $200,000 of revenue generated from his illegal side business.
In late 2016, an IRS analyst noted that an unusually large number of returns prepared by Mpouli claimed deductions for unreimbursed business expenses. In 2017, the IRS sent an undercover officer into the business; using the W-2 information the undercover officer supplied, Mpouli rightly determined the agent owed some $800 in taxes.
Mpouli then offered to enter in some $34,000 in fraudulent expenses to boost the refund to more than $5,600. Mpouli explained that the undercover officer should consider the refund a “loan” should the officer be audited by the IRS. Mpouli then accepted $250 in cash as his fee for preparing the fraudulent return.
A search on the business later turned up more than 1,200 personal returns on Mpouli’s computers,with hundreds showing suspiciously high unreimbursed business expenses and education expenses. In one example, Mpouli had claimed a client had driven more than 33,000 miles for business in one year — but that client didn’t own a vehicle or have a driver’s license and had never driven a vehicle in the U.S.
The clients said Mpouli did not discuss the returns with them before filing and that he refused to assist them when they were notified that they were being audited.
During the fraud, Mpouli was sending more than $300,000 to his native Cameroon to pay for construction of an apartment building.
He faces up to three years in prison per count. Sentencing is Jan. 11.
Raeford, North Carolina: Tax preparer Nikki Decole Cunningham-Quick has been sentenced to three years in prison for aiding in the preparation of false returns.
Cunningham-Quick prepared false tax returns for some clients of her business, Nikki’s Tax Service. She routinely included false items on federal returns, including false dependents, false income and false education credits, to inflate refunds. The tax loss was $1,494,924.26.
Cunningham-Quick, who pleaded guilty last year, was also ordered to serve a year of supervised release and to pay a special assessment of $100. She owes the IRS $308,312 in restitution.
Spring Valley, Ohio: Internet entrepreneur John S. Billhimer, 40, has pleaded guilty to a one-count federal information charging him with filing a false 1040 for tax years 2014 through 2017.
He owned and operated various businesses which conducted internet sales of aftermarket automobile parts and accessories, and electronics, on eBay and Amazon. For tax years 2014 through 2017, Billhimer willfully filed tax returns that fraudulently understated his tax liabilities and caused a tax loss to the United States of $56,000.
Sentencing is Jan. 6.
