Woman sentenced to over three years prison time for tax crime

The United States Attorney’s Office recently accused a former special agent with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Criminal Investigation Division with various tax crimes. According to the government, the former agent thwarted tax obligations by using a number of different illegal methods to reduce her tax bill.

Her alleged wrongdoing included:

• Deductions. The government accused woman of fraudulently claiming education expense and real estate loss deductions.
• Status. The IRS also states the woman wrongfully claimed head of household status and also listed false dependents on her tax return.
• Assistance program benefits. The agency also claims the accused falsely stated she was taking English courses in an effort to receive $4,000 in payment from the IRS’s employee tuition assistance program.

Ultimately, the government convicted the accused of these allegations. The court sentenced the former agent to 51 months imprisonment, three years supervised release and restitution to the government in the form of a $4,000 payment.

Lesson from this case: One of the primary lessons from this case involves willfulness. In this case, the IRS states the woman intentionally deleted files from their files in an effort to help hide evidence of her wrongdoing. Penalties generally increase severely when the IRS can establish the accused willfully violated the law. The government likely used evidence the accused destroyed files to support their case against the accused.

Options are available to preserve your innocence. Do not work to thwart the government’s efforts. Instead, contact a criminal tax violations attorney to build your defense and better ensure your legal rights are protected.