Tax Preparers And Making Things Up

The following question came up this year. It was from an experienced CPA, so I was surprised that he even asked:

Are there rules on overstating income on a tax return?

You can anticipate the thought process. It is intuitive why one is not allowed to overstate deductions, as that has the effect of reducing taxes otherwise going to the government. But to overstate income? Why would the government care if you wanted to pay more tax?

Because folks, 999 times out of 1000 that is not the reason someone overstates income.

People do this to tap into the tax-credit-money-goodies in the tax Code. Most credits will reduce your tax, but when you get down to zero tax the credit ends. There are some exceptions. The main one, of course, is the earned income credit, although in recent years the government has added the American Opportunity (usually called the college) and the child tax credits.

The government will send you a check.

The earned income credit has the peculiar feature that the credit increases (as does your refund) as your income increases – up to a point, of course, and then the credit goes away.

I have reached a point in practice where I simply do not accept a client with an earned income credit. Chances are they could not afford my fee, granted, but I have a bigger issue: as a professional preparer, I take on additional penalty exposure by signing a return with this credit. I am “supposed” to perform extra due diligence, such a verifying that there is a child in your house. I have options other than parking across the street from your place overnight to verify your comings and goings, though: I can look at your kid’s report card (if it shows an address) or a doctor’s bill (again, if it shows an address).

Sure, pal. You know what I am not going to do? Prepare your return, that is what I am not going to do.

Unless I have known you for years, and I know that you have had a financial reversal. That is different. My due diligence has already been done and over several years.

There are unscrupulous preparers who do not observe such niceties. One could set up a temporary storefront, crank out a thousand make-believe, earned income/American Opportunity/child credit tax returns, charge a usurious fee (refund anticipation loans are sweet profit), skip town and enjoy the summer at a nice beach.

I knew one of these guys, although his schtick was made-up deductions more than false tax credits. You automatically had business mileage if you were his client. It did not matter if you owned a car.

Oh, did you know that is one way for you to get audited? If the IRS looks at your preparer, your odds of also being audited go up astronomically.

I am looking at a case from my hometown – Tampa, also known as the tax-fraud capital of the nation.

Our protagonist (the “Tax Doctor”) prepared a 2007 return for Shakeena Bryant. She brought a W-2 for less than $200 from Busch Gardens and information regarding her kids.

You are not going to get much of a credit with $200 worth of income.

But the Tax Doctor had a solution: report additional income from a business.

So she went out, got a business license for auto detailing and returned with it to his office the same day.

He then put a bit over $18,000 auto-detailing income on her return.

I suppose business licenses in Tampa also allow one to travel back in time.

Wouldn’t you know she got audited?

The IRS asked her about the auto detailing business.

She told the IRS she did not have an auto detailing business.

The IRS then wanted to talk to the Tax Doctor.

He explained that he “reasonably” relied upon her statements and exercised “due diligence.” He had that license, for example, and two pages of notes. He may also have had a soiled napkin from Dunkin Donuts, but I am not sure.

Out comes the preparer penalty - $2,500 of it.

Then the Tax Doctor – not knowing when to walk away – filed suit to get his $2,500 back.

This was a really bad idea, as it allowed the IRS to depose Ms. Bryant and the friend who accompanied her to the Tax Doctor’s office that day. 

Both testified that the business income idea was his.

The Tax Doctor fired back: he observed the due diligence rules, meaning that he should not be penalized. Why, he had a business license and two pages of notes in his files!

He had a point.

The Court also made a point: Ms. Bryant never talked about an auto-detailing business until he brought up the need for more income to drive the tax credit. Perhaps a reasonable preparer would have asked for documentation …. bank statements, receipts, FaceBook postings, State Department leaks. Folks, it is acceptable for a preparer to use his/her skepticism-radar.

He was reckless.

The Court found intentional disregard of his preparer responsibilities and sustained the penalty.

My thoughts? 

Very little patience. The Tax Doctor got off easy.

Less-Than-10% Shareholders Responsible For Corporate Income Tax

I have a question for you:  if you and I work for a company and it goes bankrupt, might we have to pay back some of the money we were paid?

The answer – presumptively – is no, as long as we were employees and received payment as fair compensation for our services.

Let’s stir the pot a bit, though, and say that you and I are shareholders – albeit (very) minority shareholders. What if there were bonuses? What if we received dividends on our stock?

Let’s talk about Florida Engineered Construction Products Corp (FECP), also known as Cast Crete Corporation.

FECP had the luck of being a concrete company in Florida in the aughts when the housing market there was booming. FECP had four shareholders, but the two largest (John Stanton and Ralph Hughes) together owned over 90 percent. The balance was owned by William Kardash, who was an engineer, and Charles Robb, who headed sales.

FECP made madman-level money, although they reported no profits to the IRS.

CLUE: If one is thinking of scamming the IRS, one may want to leave a few dollars in the till. It does not take a fraud auditor to wonder how a company with revenues over $100 million uniformly fails to report a profit – any profit – year after year.

The numbers are impressive.  For example, FECP paid Messrs. Hughes and Stanton interest of the following amounts:

                                          Hughes                      Stanton

            2005                    $5,147,000              $4,250,000

            2006                    12,914,000             12,101,000

            2007                      6,468,000               9,046,000

FECP also paid hefty dividends, paying over $41 million from 2005 through 2007.

I am thinking this was a better investment than Apple stock when Steve Jobs came back.

What was their secret?

It started off by being in the right place at the right time. And then fraud. FECP had a loan with a bank, and the bank required an annual audit. FECP made big money quickly enough, however, that it repaid the bank.  Rest assured there were no further audits.

Mr. Stanton opened a bank account in FECP’s name. Problem is that the account did not appear on the company’s books. When the accountants asked what to do with the cash transfers, he told them to “mind their own business.” The accountants, having no recourse, booked them as loans. Eventually they just wrote the amounts off as an operating expense.

COMMENT:  Here is inside baseball: if you have questions about someone’s accounting, pay attention to the turnover in their accounting department, especially the higher-level personnel. If there is a different person every time you look, you may want to go skeptical.

Those massive interest payments to Messrs. Stanton and Hughes? There were no loans. That’s right: neither guy had loaned money to FECP.  I cannot help but wonder how the loans got on the books in the first place, but we are back to my COMMENT above.

Mind you, our two minority shareholders – Kardash and Robb – were making a couple of bucks also. They had nice salaries and bonuses, and they received a share of those dividends.

Proceed into the mid-aughts and there was a reversal in business fortune. The company was not doing so well. They cut back on the bonuses. The two principal owners however wanted to retain Kardash and Robb, so they decided to “loan” them money – to be paid out of future profits, of course. There were no loan papers signed, no interest was required, and Kardash and Robb were told they were not expected to ever “pay it back.” Other than that it was a routine loan.

Do you wonder where all this money was coming from?

FECP filed fraudulent tax returns for 2003 and 2004, reporting losses to Uncle Sam.

Ouch.

FECP tightened up its game in 2005, 2006 and 2007: they did not file tax returns at all.

Well, if you are going to commit tax fraud ….

But the IRS noticed.

After the mandatory audit, FECP owed the IRS more than $120 million. FECP agreed to pay back $70,000 per month. While impressive, it would still take a century-and-a-half to pay back the IRS.

Mr. Stanton went to jail. Mr. Hughes passed away. And the IRS wanted money from the two minority shareholders – Kardash and Robb. Not all of it, of course not. That would be draconian. The IRS only wanted $5 million or so from them.

There is no indication that Kardash and Robb knew what the other two shareholders were up to, but now they had to reach into their own wallets and give money back to the IRS.

On to Tax Court.  

And we are introduced to Code section 6901, which allows the IRS to assess taxes in the case of “transferee liability.”

NOTE: BTW if you wondered the difference between a tax attorney and a tax CPA, this Code section is an excellent example. We long ago left the land of accounting.

There is a hurdle, though: the IRS had to show fraud to get to transferee liability.

It is going to be challenging to show that Kardash and Robb knew what Stanton and Hughes were doing. They cashed the checks of course, but we would all do the same.

But the IRS could argue constructive fraud. In this context it meant that Kardash and Robb took from a bankrupt company without giving equal value in return.

The IRS argued that those “loans” were fraudulent, because they were, you know, “loans” and not “salary.” However the IRS had come in earlier and required both Kardash and Robb to report the loans as taxable income on their personal tax returns. Me thinketh the IRS was talking out of both sides of its mouth on this matter.

The Court decided that the “loans” were “compensation,” fair value was exchanged and Kardash and Robb did not have to repay any of it.

That left the dividends (only Stanton and Hughes had loans). Problem: almost by definition there is no “exchange” of fair value when it comes to dividends. FECP was not paying an employee, contractor or vendor. It was returning money to an owner, and that was a different matter.

The Court decided the dividends did rise to constructive fraud (that is, taking money from a bankrupt company) and had to be repaid. That cost Kardash and Robb about $4 million or so.

And thus the Court pierced the corporate veil.

But consider the extreme facts that it required. Stanton and Hughes drained the company so hard for so long that they bankrupted it. That might work if one left Duke Energy and the cleaning company behind as vendors, but it doesn’t work with Uncle Sam.  You knew the IRS was going to look in every corner for someone it could hold responsible.

"First Lady" Of Tax Fraud

If you were (a) living in Tampa Bay (b) driving a $90,000 car you paid cash for with (c) no visible means of support, would you post the following on Facebook:

“I’m Rashia, the queen of IRS tax fraud. … I’m a millionaire for the record. So if you think that indicting me will be easy, it won’t. I promise you. I won’t do no time, dumb b------.”

Her name is Rashia Tocara Wilson, and it is doubtful that she has ever been the brightest bulb in the room.

According to investigators, Wilson and two men have been under suspicion since 2010, when they were at a motel involved in a drug sting. The police noticed a significant decline in drug-dealing activity thereafter and speculated that many of those involved switched to the easier and more profitable business of tax fraud. 

There was evidence of ID and tax fraud uncovered during the raid. So much so, in fact, that local authorities launched a coordinated year-long effort with federal authorities nicknamed “Operation Rainmaker" for the cash raining down on the suspects. Since the motel raid, Tampa police continued investigating and gathering evidence on the three.

The tax fraud is not particularly complex.  The crook obtains someone's name, Social Security number and date of birth. After making sure that no one has filed a tax return under the social security number, the crook files online using software such as Turbo Tax. The crook obtains a tax refund, perhaps on a prepaid debit card.

Tampa has been deemed the “worst in the nation” for tax refund fraud. Interestingly, Rashia and the two others are considered the “pioneers” of tax fraud in Tampa. Major Ken Morman of the Tampa Police Department stated:

We believe that they are the ones that organized and recruited, they were the pioneers that actually set in the process everyone who is involved in this phenomenon. The vast majority of the people we've interviewed have been linked back to them one way or another.

These are the organizers.  These were the ones that actually structured and directed everybody when this phenomenon started.  

They have a Medicare card in their name.  They have a food stamp card in their name.  And they have $23,000 in cash from the stolen and fraudulent income tax in other's names."  

Wilson and her boyfriend were indicted conspiring to steal more than $1.1 million by filing fraudulent tax returns.