IRS Sinks Its Teeth Into Dentist for Tax Evasion
Boulos Hanna, a dentist in private practice in Connecticut, was sentenced to 10 months in prison for tax evasion.
Hanna’s troubles with the IRS go way back. For tax years 2010 through 2012, Hanna filed his returns jointly with his wife, but failed to pay the money owed. The IRS spent several years attempting to collect the debt through forced collection activities, liens placed on property and seized payments taken by way of levy.
For tax years 2013 through 2020, Hanna earned approximately 1.6 million dollars but filed no tax returns. This resulted in a loss to the IRS of $244,541. Hanna tried to avoid the assessment of any taxes by paying himself management fees instead of a salary, cashing checks paid to the business, and paying for personal expenses from his business accounts.
In addition to the prison sentence, he was ordered to pay $244,541 in restitution to the IRS. He was also sentenced to three years of supervised release and fined $25,000.
Company President Goes to Jail For Not Reporting $10 Million in Income
Chicago businessman Abraham Kiswani was sentenced to two years in prison for evading 3.7 million dollars in taxes.
Kiswani was president of World Security Bureau, and from 2010 to 2013 instructed the company’s bookkeeper to stop issuing him payroll checks and to pay him with checks falsely categorized under subcontracted services. He also had the business pay for many personal services that were classified as business expenses.
Kiswani failed to report approximately 10 million dollars in income, which resulted in a tax loss of $3,708,065. In addition to the prison sentence, he was ordered to pay restitution and a fine of $10,000.
Tax Evading Doctor Won’t Be Making House Calls Goes to the Big House Instead
After a seven day trial, Dr. Melissa Rose Barrett was sentenced to 52 months in prison for tax evasion.
Barrett owned and operated an urgent care clinic, and for tax years 2007 through 2017 owed more than 1.6 million dollars in unpaid taxes.
The IRS tried to collect the money due through various means for more than a decade, while Barrett took multiple steps to avoid paying. She prepared and filed false IRS forms, underreported her income, inaccurately detailed her assets and hid cash in a safe.
During this time Barrett purchased real estate and personal property worth millions in the name of nominees. This included her personal home, thousands of acres of farmland and hunting land, boats and airplanes.
In addition to the prison sentence Barrett was ordered to pay restitution and fined $200,000.
Tech Manufacturer Company Owner Manufacturers Income and Comes Up 8 Million Dollars Short
Cuong Chi Quan was sentenced to 10 months in prison for underreporting his income by almost 4.5 million dollars.
Quan owned QXQ, a manufacturer of circuit board test systems based in Northern California. He kept two sets of records in QuickBooks, one included all sales made to customers in the US and all the company expenses, while the other included all sales made to customers in Asia. Quan admitted that he only gave his tax preparer the files that included the US sales and the company expenses.
To hide the income from sales made in Asia, Quan had those customers wire payments to accounts he had in New Zealand. In 2017 he omitted over four million dollars in income, causing a loss to the IRS of $1,783,339.
Quan also admitted that he began using the two sets of books before 2014. In 2017 he had signature authority over at least 11 foreign bank accounts, and one of the accounts had a balance of $12,137,288.50 in April 2018. Quan did not report the existence of these accounts as required, nor did he report the significant interest earned.
In addition to the prison sentence, Quan was ordered to pay the IRS $8,167,733 for underreported income tax for 2014 through 2018. He was also fined $35,000 and given a three year term for supervised release.
IRS Tackles Jaguar Football Employee Who Embezzled $22 Million and Gets 6 years in Prison!
A former employee of the Jacksonville Jaguars football team was sentenced to six years and six months in prison for wire fraud, illegal monetary transactions, and tax evasion.
Amit Patel embezzled approximately $22,221,454 from the Jaguars. Patel was the administrator of the team’s virtual credit card and made hundreds of personal purchases and transactions through the system. He used company funds to place bets through online gambling websites, to pay for personal travel for himself and his friends, including booking chartered jets, luxury hotels and private residences. He bought a new Tesla Model 3, a Nissan pick-up truck and a condo in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. He also purchased concert and sporting event tickets, luxury watches, spa treatments, home furnishings, electronics, sports memorabilia, a country club membership, cryptocurrency, non-fungible tokens and paid a criminal defense law firm. He reported none of this as income on his tax returns.
To hide his crime, Patel coded all his purchases to match legitimate Jaguar expenses, such as airfare and hotel charges, and duplicated recurring monthly charges the organization had.
Tax Commissioner Marked Herself Exempt
The tax commissioner for Worth County, Georgia, Tabetha DuPriest, pleaded guilty to not reporting earnings on her tax returns.
DuPriest had been the tax commissioner since 2001 and received a salary of $80,000 a year, which she reported on her returns. In this position she oversaw the collection of motor vehicle taxes and property taxes. She was contracted separately by the four municipalities of Worth County to collect city taxes, and paid as a contractor by each city. She did not declare any of this additional income on her tax returns until the FBI questioned her about it in 2022. At first she told the FBI that she was reporting the income and later admitted that she was not.
Between 2016 and 2021 DuPriest received $99,293.65 from the four cities.
She caused a loss to the IRS of at least $27,924.22 and is required to pay restitution. She also faces up to three years in prison, fines and supervised release.
Your IRS Questions Answered Here…
Question: I’ve heard that the IRS will take a reduced monthly payment amount to settle my tax debt in full. Is that true?
Answer: This is what is referred to as a monthly Installment Agreement Payment Plan. The IRS has several debt settlement options but it’s important to act before they garnish your paycheck and/or levy your bank account.
There are several types of Installment Agreements. One of them, is called the “Partial Pay Installment Agreement” (PPIA) where it’s possible to settle your outstanding balance with the IRS for less than what’s owed. It’s based on your monthly disposable income and how much time is remaining on the 10-year collection statute expiration date. The IRS can only collect on a debt for 10 years, so the older your IRS tax debt is, the more likely you may be able to do a PPIA to settle it, if you qualify for this program. The IRS does not “advertise” this option for obvious reasons. There are strict eligibility requirements that must be met, so the first step is to call us to see if you qualify.
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