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IRS Employee Stole Tax Payer Refunds and Filed Fraud Returns

  Sanjiv Gupta CPA  Published 
IRS Employee Stole Tax Payer Refunds and Filed Fraud Returns

A former Internal Revenue Service employee in the US, Thomas W Richardson of Mansfield, Texas was sentenced to prison for nine years nearly since he was found guilty of identity theft and also of theft of government property. He was also ordered to pay $30,649 for the same. The case had been investigated by the IRS-Criminal Investigation. Trial Attorneys Robert A. Kemins and Jed Silversmith of the Justice Department’s Tax Division, as well as Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Revesz, prosecuted the case.

The US District Judge Jane J. Boyle in Dallas handed down this sentence after being notified that Richardson, the former employee of the IRS had used his expertise on IRS operations to do the wrong act.  However, on being prodded Richardson had admitted to all his crimes. He confessed that from April 15-17, 2006 around the deadline for filing tax returns he presented 29 fraudulent 2005 income tax return sheets.

Each of those false sheets claimed a refund of an amount ranging from $215,801 and $473,832. The total of all the tax returns amounts to $7,922,657. He also added that the taxpayers were couples who did a joint filing on tax returns. The Social Security number mentioned on the tax returns was assigned to the names of the husband and wife.  In almost all of the cases, the names on the tax returns matched the name of the individuals to whom these numbers were given. Interestingly these returns were prepared without the knowledge of the taxpayers listed on the tax return sheets.

All of the returns directed the IRS to have the payment done from Richardson’s bank accounts. As per the records the IRS made a payment of seven refunds which amounted to $1, 865,401 between May 12, 2006, and May 19, 2006. $30,649 was recovered by the IRS. After this, Judge Boyle had ordered Richardson to report to the Bureau of Prisons on 6th March, 2012.

How about your financial information. Is it safe with your CPA or Tax Professional ? Please tells us if you are concerned about your personal information. Being a technical consultant, I will talk about the “security measure” you can ask for when you go visit your tax advisor.