Two years ago we addressed the IRS’s flawed refund procedure in False Refund Schemes and Backwards IRS Return Processing Rules. Today, Jay Weaver of the Miami Herald gives a distressing update in Scammers Steal IRS Refunds with Ease: “We are seeing defendants once involved in other types of crimes [such as drug trafficking] getting involved in identity-theft schemes, [...]
Tags: Individual Taxation · IRS procedure · News · Tax Crimes
WebCPA reports that the IRS increased the number of fraudulent tax refund claims it detected and stopped during the 2011 tax-filing season by 171 percent over the previous year: As of April 30, 2011, the IRS had identified 775,723 tax returns with $4.6 billion claimed in fraudulent refunds and prevented the issuance of $4.4 billion, [...]
Tags: IRS Audits · IRS procedure · Regulation of Tax Preparers · Tax Crimes
Law and More reports that attorney Jeffrey Abramowitz has pleaded guilty to stealing client funds and filing a fraudulent tax return: Here’s yet another situation which demonstrates the need for checks and balances in law firms for ensuring that attorneys don’t embezzle client funds. Former partner in a two-lawyer firm, Jeffrey Abramowitz, has pleaded guilty [...]
Tags: News · Tax Crimes
Carmen Nobel of Harvard Business School’s blog Working Knowledge writes in Signing at the Top: The Key to Preventing Tax Fraud: [M]any taxpayers give in to the temptation to cheat on their taxes—in spite of the requirement for them to sign a statement declaring that the information on the form is “true, correct, and complete.” [...]
Tags: Individual Taxation · Tax Crimes
Richard Hatch can survive in the wild but not in civilization. The Associated Press reports that the reality T.V. star turned himself in to U.S. marshals in Rhode Island on Monday to begin a nine-month prison sentence for failing to pay taxes on the $1 million he won on first season of the CBS show [...]
Tags: News · Tax Crimes
I recently received a barage of vulgar and threatening comments from several unhinged tax protesters (these folks have serious anger problems) about my contention that people who argue that the federal income tax is a form of slavery are a couple of ants short of a picnic. If I published these frenzied screeds, it would conclusively prove my point [...]
Tags: Absurd Tax Protester Arguments
I just read Snipes’s petiton for cert and discovered that his lawyers’ arguments are wackier than I had first thought. Before his criminal trial Wesley Snipes claimed that venue was not proper in the Middle District of Florida, Ocala Division. The Court then allowed the venue issue to be presented to the jury. The jury found, by [...]
Tags: Supreme Court · Tax Crimes
