Yearly Archives: 2018

According to DoJ, the former Chief Financial Officer of an Austin, Texas based company pleaded guilty today to willfully failing to pay over employment taxes to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

According to court documents, from 2010 to 2016, John Herzer was the CFO of AXO Staff Leasing (AXO), a professional employer organization.

Herzer handled all of the company’s finances and had final authority over which creditors to pay and when to pay them. Herzer was also responsible for collecting and paying to the IRS taxes withheld from AXO’s employees’ wages.

Despite this obligation, Herzer did not pay to the IRS AXO’s employment tax withholdings and instead used more than $4.9 million of those funds for his own benefit including paying personal expenses and transferring millions of dollars to his own bank accounts. 

A sentencing date has not yet been scheduled. Herzer faces a statutory maximum sentence of 5 years imprisonment, as well as a term of supervised release, restitution.

Contact the Tax Lawyers at 

Marini & Associates, P.A.
 

 

for a FREE Tax Consultation contact us at

www.TaxAid.com or www.OVDPLaw.com 

or Toll Free at 888-8TaxAid (888 882-9243)

 

 



 

According to the DoJ, a former special agent for the Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigation was sentenced to serve 51 months in prison for filing false tax returns, obstruction of justice, and stealing government money.

 

According to the evidence introduced at trial, Alena Aleykina, 45, who is also a Certified Public Accountant and holds a master’s degree in business administration, filed six false tax returns – three personal tax returns for years 2009, 2010, and 2011, and three in the names of trusts she created for years 2010 and 2011.  

 

• On her personal tax returns, Aleykina fraudulently claimed the head of household filing status, listed false dependents, and claimed deductions for education expenses to which she was not entitled.
• Aleykina also obtained a fraudulent legal separation decree from the California Superior Court for Yolo County so that she and her husband could claim rental real estate loss deductions to which they were not entitled. 
  

• Further, on a trust tax return, she falsely claimed to be paying wages to her mother and her sister to care for her son and father. 
• Additionally, Aleykina stole government funds and obstructed justice during the investigation. 
• She stole from the IRS’s Tuition Assistance Program, a program created to allow IRS employees to take job-related classes from local colleges and educational institutions.
• Aleykina falsely claimed to be taking English classes from a trust registered to her sister.
• As a result of these fake classes, Aleykina recieved $4,000 in tuition reimbursement from the Tuition Assistance Program.  

When criminal investigators approached Aleykina to retrieve her government laptop, Aleykina lied to the agents about the location of the laptop and deleted dozens of files from the computer after the agents left. 

The total loss to the government from Aleykina’s conduct is more than $50,000.

Aleykina was previously convicted in June after a two-week federal jury trial in the Eastern District of California of filing false tax returns, destroying records in a federal investigation, and theft of government money.

In addition to the term of prison imposed, Aleykina was also ordered to serve one year of supervised release and to pay $4,000 in restitution to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). 

 Have a Tax Problem?

 

Contact the Tax Lawyers at 

Marini & Associates, P.A.

 

for a FREE Tax Consultation contact us at

www.TaxAid.com or www.OVDPLaw.com 

or Toll Free at 888-8TaxAid (888 882-9243)

 

 

IRS has issued proposed regs that describe and clarify the requirements that must be met by a taxpayer in order to defer the recognition of gains by investing in a qualified opportunity fund (QOF) under Code Sec. 1400Z-2, as added by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA, P.L. 115-97; 12/22/2017).

The proposed regs provide rules allowing a corporation or partnership to self-certify as a QOF and provide initial proposed rules on some of the requirements that must be met by a corporation or partnership in order to qualify as a QOF.

Taxpayer may rely on these regs as indicated in the regs.  (Preamble to Prop Reg REG-115420-18, Proposed Reg § 1.1400Z-2(a)-1, Proposed Reg § 1.1400Z-2(c)-1, Proposed Reg § 1.1400Z-2(d)-1, Proposed Reg § 1.1400Z-2(e)-1; IR 2018-206, 10/19/2018)

 Need Help Forming A

Qualified Opportunity Fund (QOF)?

 

 

Contact the Tax Lawyers at
Marini & Associates, P.A. 

 

 for a FREE Tax Consultation Contact us at: 

www.TaxAid.com or www.OVDPLaw.com

or Toll Free at 888-8TaxAid (888 882-9243). 



4. Late Returns With Reasonable Cause Statement

Taxpayers who do not need to use the OVDP or the Streamlined Filing Compliance Procedures to file delinquent or amended tax returns to report and pay additional tax, but who:

• have not filed one or more required international information returns,
• have reasonable cause for not timely filing the information returns,
• are not under a civil examination or a criminal investigation by the IRS, and
• have not already been contacted by the IRS about the delinquent information returns

should file the delinquent information returns with a statement of all facts establishing reasonable cause for the failure to file.

As the IRS continues to combat offshore tax avoidance and evasion using: 

• FATCA Information
• 150 Offshore Banks Turning Over Names To The IRSyour radio 
• Data Mining
• whistleblower leads,
• civil examination and
• criminal prosecution.

Click How Will the IRS Know About My Foreign Account? to learn the answers about "How will they (IRS) know about my Foreign Account?;" that noncompliant US taxpayers ask when they are considering how (or whether) to come clean and inform the IRS about their previously undisclosed foreign financial accounts.