Tax Evasion Schemes,
Abusive Trusts and other Bogus Tax Avoidance Scams
Tax evasion schemes, scams and cons are so common that the Internal
Revenue Service has created a Tax
Fraud Alert page on its Web site where you can find civil and
criminal actions against promoters of schemes, info on the so-called "Slavery
Reparation Scam," abusive trust schemes, employment tax enforcement
program, phony tax preparers, and the Social Security refund hoax,
among others.
Second Class Scammers
03/02 - Going under the names Dean and Bass and the Second
Class Citizens' Committee, James Dean of Mobile suggested through
his web site and toll free number that African Americans who had
filed a federal tax return within the last three years could --
with a little help and a fee of about $150 -- now be due a rebate
of $40,000 or more.
The advertised rebates were not reparations, he said, but refunds
of "overpayments" on taxes that blacks had to pay during
the century after the Civil War when they were often denied full
civil rights.
Nonetheless, reparations claims began showing up on federal tax
returns in the early 1990s prompted by scams which are aimed at milking
the debate over whether government owes financial compensation to
blacks as a consequence of slavery.
Such businesses tend to be clustered in the South, and their numbers
appear to be growing according to the IRS who reported receiving
almost 80,000 returns last year claiming more than $2.7 billion in
false reparation refunds. By the time victims discover their refund
claims are rejected their money and the promoters are long gone.
The Justice Department has sued two men in Mississippi and Virginia,
claiming the men had filed returns seeking fraudulent tax refunds
of up to $500,000 per client. Though not yet charged Dean acknowledges
that he is now under investigation by both the Internal Revenue Service
and the U.S. Postal Service.
|
