Thursday, January 2, 2014

IRS Cracking Down on Fraudulent Minnesota Tax Advisors

Tax Cheats Beware! -
A 63-count indictment has been unsealed charging Chatonda Khofi, Ishmael Kosh, Amadou Sangaray and Francis Saygbay in a conspiracy to defraud the IRS.
The indictment alleges that Primetime Tax Services Inc., where Khofi was CEO and Kosh and Sangaray managers, prepared false returns. According to court documents, Khofi, Kosh, Sangaray and Saygbay conspired among themselves and with others to prepare and file false individual returns for clients. Some of these returns reported false dependents, false deductions, false Schedule Cs and false wage income, resulting in inflated refunds.
As part of the scheme, court documents alleged, the defendants prepared and filed false Minnesota state returns for clients that contained the same or similar false information as reported on the federal returns. From 2007 to 2009, Primetime filed more than 2,000 customer federal income tax returns with the IRS.
The indictment further charges each defendant with multiple counts of aggravated ID theft and aiding and assisting in the preparation of false individual returns. The aggravated ID theft charges stem from the defendants’ alleged use of the names and Social Security names of actual persons to falsely claim as dependents on clients’ individual returns. According to the indictment, the defendants also accompanied some clients to check-cashing businesses to cash their falsely inflated refund checks, then demanded a portion of the cashed check in addition to tax prep fees already collected.
The indictment further alleges that in some instances the defendants withdrew cash from debit cards containing clients’ refunds without permission, again in addition to the prep fees already collected. 
If convicted, the defendants face a maximum of five years in prison for the conspiracy count and three years of prison for each count of aiding in the preparation of a false return. The ID theft counts carry a mandatory two-year sentence. This was also provided by Accounting Today!
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