Lenard de Guzman, EA
Real Estate Big Wig, Files Fraudulent BK Hides $6.9 Million from IRS and gets 41 Months in Jail!
A California real estate developer was sentenced to 41 months in prison for hiding 2.3 million dollars in income from a bankruptcy petition, and not reporting 6.9 million dollars in income on his tax returns.
In April 2015, Mark Handel filed for bankruptcy and claimed that he had no income from 2013 to April 2015. In reality he earned $2,263,221 from DTMM Construction, Inc, his real estate development company. Court documents showed that DTMM stood for, Don’t Touch My Money. To hide his income, Handel registered the company in his wife’s name and used company funds to pay for his family’s personal expenses.
On his 2015 tax return Handel failed to disclose $1,096,175 in income. For tax years 2010 to 2017 he failed to report $6,886,877 in income. On his 2017 return he claimed a net loss of $7,259,119 and on his 2018 return underreported his income by $1,411,050, and later admitted to failing to pay $460,408 in additional tax.
Handel was ordered to pay a $20,000 fine, and forfeit $3,545,712, which was the proceeds from a real estate sale. He was also ordered to pay $1,618.836
Trusted Board Member Not So Trustworthy, Caught Embezzling, Faces 10 Years
Deborah Wilzcek, a board member of a YWCA and a Montessori school, pleaded guilty to embezzling from both organizations and filing a false tax return.
Wilzcek had access to the organizations’ bank accounts and made unauthorized transfers to her personal accounts. She stole $138,308.35 from the YWCA and $275,643 from the school over a period of several years. She forged the signatures of two principals from the school to make the transfers happen.
Question
Why was the
seafood restaurant being investigated by the IRS?
Answer
They were suspected of being a shell company in some fishy business.
Judge Gives a Wink and a Nod to Man Who Placed Thousands of Fake Amazon Orders
Wisconsin resident Christian Wink was sentenced to five years probation for wire fraud and filing a false tax return.
Between 2017 and 2020 Wink had a lucrative business that consisted of ordering expensive items on Amazon, requesting a refund and returning the items. The catch: Wink did not return the actual items he received. He returned less expensive, often broken items, and kept the original items he ordered.
Wink ordered items such as ethernet cables and Wi-Fi routers and returned items like broken cell phone charging cables.
Wink made 3,485 fraudulent transactions, costing Amazon a total of $372,359.07. He did not report any of this income on his tax return.
The judge in the case said that the crime would normally warrant a prison sentence, but Wink had a long history of mental illness and had shown that he had turned his life around.
Fraudulent Tax Preparer Skims From Client’s Tax Returns Gets 30 Months in Prison
Raudel Sandoval, a California tax preparer, was sentenced to 30 months in prison for preparing 389 fraudulent federal tax refunds.
Between 2015 and 2018, Sandoval filed tax returns on behalf of his clients that claimed false or inflated amounts of child tax credit, business losses, short term capital losses and other items his clients were not entitled to. Sandoval gave his clients a copy of their correct tax return, but submitted the falsified documents to the IRS, along with bank account numbers and routing numbers to accounts he controlled, so that all the refunds came to him.
He had over 100 bank accounts, some in the names of his clients, that he opened without permission, and some with the name, “Federal Tax Refund Processing.” He was the only signer on all the accounts. He would then transfer the amount the client was expecting into the client’s bank account, and the client would assume it was coming from a legitimate government account.
Your IRS Questions Answered Here…
Question: I’m currently separated from my spouse, who owns his own business, and we are in the midst of getting a divorce. I have always filed jointly with my husband and now the IRS is sending me notices stating I owe $87,000. I have no idea how they are coming up with this amount as my spouse always took care of paying the IRS what was owed.
Answer: You may be able to avoid this liability entirely under the IRS’s Innocent Spouse Relief rules. Under federal law if an income tax return is signed by both husband and wife, both spouses are 100% responsible for the taxes owed. However, the law permits special consideration where a spouse cannot be held responsible for the underreporting of income or the understatement of tax that are attributable to the other spouse.
If you meet the following criteria, you may be able to apply for Equitable Relief under IRS’s innocent spouse rules: If the amount reported on your joint tax return is correct but wasn’t paid with the return you may be eligible. Or, if you feel you were deceived by your spouse or tricked into signing a return you thought was correct this will help your case too. There are many other ways you may be eligible for relief under the IRS’s innocent spouse rules, and we can help sort this out and determine the proper path for resolution.
We at IRS RESO are experts in IRS tax problem resolution and help taxpayers with their IRS Problems every day. There is a solution to EVERY problem. Call us today! 310.857.4438 for a FREE confidential consultation.
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