IRS Employee Stole Data To Forge $8M In Fraudulent Returns 151
coondoggie writes "A former Internal Revenue Service employee this week got 105 months in prison for pleading guilty to theft of government property and aggravated identity theft in a case where the guy tried to get away with nearly $8 million in fraudulent tax returns. The U.S. Department of Justice said Thomas Richardson used his inside knowledge of IRS operations to commit his crime, which was pretty audacious. According to the DOJ, Richardson admitted that within a two-day period, April 15 to April 17, 2006, he filed or caused to be filed 29 fraudulent 2005 individual income tax returns totaling $7,922,657."
Dumb plan (Score:4, Informative)
According to the DOJ, Richardson admitted that the tax returns were prepared without the authorization of the 58 taxpayers listed on the tax returns. All of the returns directed that the IRS pay the money to one of Richardson's bank accounts.
I imagine a red flag was automatically triggered by the 58 returns going to one bank account. As a side note, I know people who write code for the Federal government that checks for irregularities like this and they do that for a living 40 hours a week, so if you're going to try to scam the IRS you have to be at least a little clever.
Re:Dumb plan (Score:2, Informative)
Re:This is bullshit (Score:2, Informative)
105 MONTHS in prison, not weeks. Just a bit shy of 9 years.
financial crimes often go unreported (Score:5, Informative)
1. a lot of financial institutions would rather not it be public knowledge that they have problems in their security systems, etc. they try to hush things up without getting the cops involved.
2. the cops sometimes will collude with them to hush things up. see 'The Asylum' by Leah McGrath Goodman and NYMEX (yes, NYMEX from Trading Places)
3. at the highest echelon, the notion of what is legal and illegal gets distorted and fooled with, by lobbyists, payed-for intellectuals, and the super rich. so that to date there has been little-to-no prosecution of the people in the CDO, mortgage securities, robo signing, foreclosure fraud, and housing bubble system. experts and authors like Roger Lowenstein spill buckets of ink trying to prove that no crime took place, even though 2 trillion dollars magically disappeared into hedge funds and investment banks offshore accounts in 2008, with the help of the taxpayer.
4. take number 3 and just ... multiply it. well. did you know, for example, that the guy who ran Nymex was, directly before he ran Nymex, the head government regulator of Nymex? And that he let Nymex do stuff that it shouldn't have been doing, and then they hired him out of his government job and gave him a huge raise? there are thousands of cases like that that never receive media attention.
in other words, people DO get away with that sort of thing, all the time.
and the best way to get away with it is to have something like 'CEO' or 'Board Chairman' on your resume.
Re:Cheaters (Score:5, Informative)
I have a big problem paying taxes the way they are.
The IRS can go straight to hell. Nowhere else in America are you guilty till proven innocent and due process does not exist. You can be put in jail with all of your assets seized, which greatly inhibits your ability to defend yourself. Unless they really do charge you criminally, you are not provided with a defense in a case where you already guilty.
Add to this the fact that the average IRS is a fucking retard when it comes to accounting, tax laws, corporate structures, etc. and they still have the ability to outright destroy your ass with their ignorance, in many cases with no oversight or accountability .
I speak from experience. When you are in an oil and gas state and you can get some arrogant sociopathic retarded fucktwat from several states away who thinks he knows about your industry better than accountants and regulators and incorrectly over charges you millions, it might piss you off. Just a little.
Fought it in court viciously for over 9 years at the cost of nearly a million dollars. In the end, other people in the IRS were finally brought in to audit it, and lo and behold, they were wrong the whole time.
Made those fuckers pay interest and on the wall in the office is a framed check from the IRS for well over 7 million dollars.
Rot In Hell.
I am not surprised at all by this. Not even the slightest. What I am surprised about is that they don't catch them doing it more often.
IRS needs to be completely razed to the ground and a new system put into place. No wonder I am big huuuuuggge fan of taxing consumption and not wealth. Not only is it passive to citizens, but a hell of lot easier to understand. Disagree with me for sure, but that fucking group of psychopaths needs to be taken care of.
Re:Cheaters (Score:4, Informative)
Consumption taxes are not inherently simpler than income taxes. The core reason behind conservatives arguing constantly for a flat consumption tax is that they are tired of progressive taxes and really would prefer taxes to be regressive. It has very little to do with the IRS or your plight.
I had a back and forth, about taxes, in another thread with a /.er whose rebuttal was
"The founding fathers didn't institute a progressive income tax"
The fact is, consumption taxes (and/or tariffs) were enough to support the Federal Government's expenditures for the first ~85 years of its existence.
Now, a universal flat tax is just a massive giveaway to the richest Americans and a massive taking from those least able to afford it.
Not even Hermain Cain's 9-9-9 survived as a universal flat tax. [wsj.com]
Re:Cheaters (Score:5, Informative)