Although Florida residents face no state income tax requirements, they still may have federal obligations to file and pay. Not everyone knows the IRS's rules and procedures for enforcing tax compliance or contacting taxpayers, so the average person might fall victim...
A South Florida federal judge sentenced a 29-year-old North Miami man last week to 38 months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release, for his role in a sophisticated tax fraud scheme. In addition, the defendant was ordered to pay $454,121.72 in restitution. From 2012 to 2015, the defendant used stolen information of hundreds of victims to electronically…
The IRS is increasing efforts to reach high-income individuals – people with incomes above $100,000 – who have failed to file at least one or more tax returns in recent years in an attempt to encourage compliance, the agency said on Wednesday. The increased efforts include sending several dozens of agents to make at least 800 face-to-face visits in February and…
wo defendants involved in a stolen identity and tax refund fraud scheme were sentenced to federal prison terms yesterday in the Southern District of Florida. One defendant was sentenced to 5 years in prison; the other to 2 years in prison. Both defendants are jointly responsible for paying $563,210 in restitution to the Internal Revenue Service. The scheme involved using stolen identities to…
Tax fraud is a serious offense. One father and daughter team defrauded the IRS out of $3.4 million. They claimed the organization owed them much more in tax refunds than they actually should have received. The federal government takes tax fraud seriously, and business owners have greater risks than individual citizens. There are several ways businesses can inadvertently commit tax…
A Port St. Lucie, Florida, man was convicted by a federal jury yesterday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida of ten counts of aiding and assisting in the filing of false income tax returns and three counts of filing false income tax returns. According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, from 2012 through…
A former Boca Raton man who ran a Pompano Beach tax-preparation business was sentenced last week to a total of 66 months in federal prison after pleading guilty in May to illegally using the identities of people with cerebral palsy and imprisoned inmates to file fraudulent tax returns. According to court records, Wilson Lasset, 48, filed approximately 1,606 tax returns…
Yesterday, a federal court in Miami granted a permanent injunction barring Jessyca Bernard from Lauderhill, Florida, from preparing federal tax returns for others. The civil injunction order, to which Bernard agreed, was signed by Chief Judge K. Michael Moore of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida. According to the complaint, Bernard worked as a paid tax…
In a 2015 article, the NY Post claims that South Florida has become the nation’s “organized fraud capital,” with identity theft tax fraud schemes leading the way. Identity theft, the fastest-growing crime in South Florida, is being used to gather names and Social Security numbers in order to file fraudulent tax returns and collect a refund check. The number of false federal income…