Founded on fraud; what’s in a name?; taken for granted; and other highlights of recent tax cases.
Hermitage, Pennsylvania: Roofer Dustin R. Golub has pleaded guilty to a charge of tax evasion.
For calendar 2016, 2017 and 2018, Golub failed to report some $3,791,891 in gross receipts from his business, Penn Ohio Roofing and Siding. Instead of depositing all of his business receipts into his business operating accounts, he attempted to conceal business receipts by spreading them among nine different personal bank accounts, including four personal accounts in the names of his children. Despite multiple warnings, he also kept his bank transactions under $10,000 to avoid currency transaction reports.
The federal tax loss totaled $438,134.
Sentencing is July 29. He faces five years in prison, a fine of $250,000 or both.
Arlington, Texas: Glenn Edwards Boggus, whose fraudulent tax filings netted him more than $935,000 in improper refunds, has been sentenced to five years in federal prison and ordered to pay $495,368 in restitution to the IRS,
Boggus, who pleaded guilty in January 2020, admitted that in January 2017 he filed a fraudulent 1040 that claimed a $1.14 million refund for tax year 2016. Along with his fraudulent 1040, he submitted a false W-2 reporting $5,647,888 in wages and $3,333,116 in withholdings, which he knew to be false. The IRS sent Boggus a check for $935,432.56 for his alleged refund.
Boggus also admitted that for tax years 2013 through 2015, he executed a similar scheme, submitting false returns claiming he had paid certain withholdings and was entitled to refunds. He claimed fraudulent federal refunds totaling more than $600,000 for those years.
Eau Claire, Wisconsin: Tax preparer Nicolle M. Wilson, 49, has been sentenced to five years in prison for creating fictional businesses for two of her clients and opening unauthorized bank accounts for those businesses, said news reports, adding that she was sentenced on two counts of ID theft and one count each of wire fraud against a financial institution, fraud against a financial institution and money laundering.
As conditions of supervision and probation, Wilson must undergo any recommended programming or treatment and cannot be associated in the finances of other people, reports said, adding that she was also fined $8,180.
The prison term is reportedly in addition to the five years in prison Wilson received in December for writing herself a $60,000 check to help build a home. The money came from the Eau Claire County Humane Association when she was reportedly its bookkeeper.
Investigation in the latest case was reportedly started after a local woman contacted her sheriff because she believed someone had used her personal information to open financial accounts in her name. A Madison financial institution had called the woman to update her contact information; the woman had never banked at the institution and the address the financial institution had for the woman was the address for Wilson, the woman’s accountant and preparer, reports said, adding that Wilson had helped the woman apply for a Paycheck Protection Program loan.
The woman then learned that a second PPP loan was made in her name for a fictional business, reports said, adding that the loan request for the fictional business was for nearly $23,000, which was denied.
A second woman soon contacted Eau Claire police to report that Wilson had been opening bank accounts in her name without her knowledge or consent and said that Wilson had been her preparer for years, according to news outlets. Wilson reportedly tried to transfer $72,000 into the accounts; authorities soon learned the $72,000 was transferred from a fraudulent account in the woman's name from a second bank and that the money was a PPP loan made in the second woman’s name. Wilson reportedly forged the woman’s signature and W-9 for the money transfer.
News reports added that she was also ordered to spend a combination of 10 years on extended supervision or probation following her release from prison.
Accokeek, Maryland: Resident Lenore Gail Worthy has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud the United States and to assisting in the preparation and filing of false returns.
Worthy obtained e-filing privileges from the IRS and allowed a conspirator, who was not eligible for admission into the program due to a conviction for wire fraud, to use Worthy’s identifiers in exchange for $29 per return beginning in 2012.
In 2015, the IRS expelled Worthy from its e-file program due to a criminal investigation into fraudulent returns. Another conspirator who was also in the program agreed to allow Worthy and her first conspirator to use their identifiers in exchange for the use of her first conspirator’s shared office space in Temple Hills, Maryland. All three falsified returns and fraudulently claimed refunds.
Worthy and her conspirators falsified returns by fabricating, inflating and improperly claiming deductions on Schedule A and by engineering business losses by improperly claiming purported business expenses.
In December 2017, the IRS threw Worthy’s second conspirator out of the e-filing program due to a criminal investigation into fraudulent returns. That conspirator then misled a third-party electronic return originator about the criminal nature of her issues with the IRS and the third party allowed her to file returns using its unique identifiers, which Worthy and her cohorts shared to continue to file phony returns through at least April 2019.
The federal loss for the tax years 2012 through 2018 was $189,748. As part of her plea agreement, Worthy will pay restitution in the full amount of the loss. She also faces a maximum of five years in prison for the conspiracy and three years in prison for aiding and assisting in the preparation and filing of false returns. Sentencing is Aug. 20.
Norfolk, Virginia: Nikia Tull has been sentenced to 33 months in prison for wire fraud and participating in the preparation of fraudulent income tax returns while she co-owned a tax prep service with multiple offices in the Hampton Roads, Virginia, area.
Tull was the co-owner, operator and manager of YT Phoenix Enterprises, a.k.a. Phoenix Financial Tax Service. Between 2014 and 2018, she helped prepare and submit 33 federal income tax returns containing numerous false and fraudulent items. These included residential energy credits, unreimbursed employee expenses, charitable contributions and business losses.
Tull charged her clients based on the number of separate forms filed with each return, so she was able to collect more fees for herself by including the false items and amounts. The federal tax loss was some $230,000.
She also devised a wire fraud scheme aimed at a small-business lender in which she submitted materially false and fraudulently altered bank statements to support online applications for loans of $20,000 and $50,000 for her business.
Tull was
She was also ordered to pay $162,460 in restitution.
Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania: Resident Anthony Dibona has pleaded guilty to conversion of government funds and filing false returns.
From April 2013 to about June 2017, Dibona received $57,242 in undeserved grants from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. When filing his original returns for tax years 2013 to 2015, he omitted all grant income from his 1040s.
After the IRS discovered Dibona’s unreported grant income, he was advised that the income was taxable and, through a tax preparer, filed a first set of amended returns for the relevant tax years and added the grant income to his returns. In July 2018, however, Dibona went to a different preparer and filed a second set of amended returns removing the grant income. He also filed an original return for tax year 2017 and omitted his grant income.
The tax loss totaled $19,809.
Sentencing is Aug. 2. The law provides for a maximum total sentence of 22 years in prison, a fine of $1,250,000 or both.
