Two IRS employees are being sent to prison for defrauding taxpayers out of hundreds of thousands of dollars, according to Treasury Department inspector general reports released Wednesday.
The office said IRS employee Nakisha Hall used her position to access the personal information of hundreds of taxpayers between 2008 and 2011, creating fraudulent returns on her own computer and receiving more than $550,000 in tax refunds she requested be sent in the form of debit cards.
After Hall came up with the idea for the scheme, she asked four people to help her hide where the money was going by having the tax refund debit cards sent to a number of “drop addresses.” They used the taxpayers’ money to buy goods and services for themselves or turn the refunds into cash by using ATMs.
For refunds received via paper Treasury checks, they used fraudulent endorsements to cash the checks at banks. The other scammers were compensated with a portion of the money or refund debt cards she received.
Hall received 110 months, which is just over nine years, in prison after pleading guilty to stealing government funds, identity theft, unauthorized access violations and conspiracy to commit mail fraud. The federal government recommended the scammers be held liable for at least $438,187 in restitution, but reserved the right to increase the amount if additional cases were found before Hall’s sentencing.
Alleged co-conspirators Jimmie Goodman, Lashon Roberson, and Abdulla Coleman, have also been arrested and charged. Though legal action against Coleman is pending, both Roberson and Goodman received more than three years in prison after also pleading guilty.
In the second case, Atlanta-based IRS auditor Creshika Wise developed a complex scheme in which she pretended to legitimately collect money that taxpayers owed to the IRS. After a married couple accidentally underreported their income and underpaid the IRS, the taxpayers’ accountant reached an agreement with the IRS for the two taxpayers to pay $758,856.
Wise filed fake IRS forms that showed only $282,363 was owed, and tried to collect the rest.
Wise was sentenced to a mandatory minimum term of two years of imprisonment for the identity theft. The report states additional legal proceedings are anticipated.
