A Las Vegas man will likely spend some serious time behind bars for his role in a scheme that the defrauded the government by filing of false tax returns.
Assistant Attorney General Kathryn Keneally for the Tax Division and U.S. Attorney Daniel G. Bogden for the District of Nevada announced that Damon Boswell of Las Vegas pleaded guilty to conspiracy to submit false federal income tax returns. Working with Cheryl Ramos, Boswell advised individuals that if they had not filed their 2008 federal income tax returns and did not owe back taxes, they were entitled to receive “Obama Stimulus” money. Boswell made those claims during April and May of 2009.
There was, of course, no so such thing “Obama Stimulus” money. It was easy enough to convince some taxpayers that it existed, however, because of claims of a stimulus, including the highly touted Making Work Pay Credit (MWPC). The MWPC was part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and provided up to $400 per individual worker and $800 per working married couple. Unlike the Bush rebate check, however, the credit was not a check but was administered through cuts in withholding at the employer level. The MWPC began in the 2009 tax year, just as tax season for 2008 was wrapping up, making it easy to confuse taxpayers.
Boswell used hype about “Obama Stimulus” to convince taxpayers to turn over their personal information, including name, address and Social Security number. Boswell then used that information to file federal income tax returns in those individual’s names – and without their authorization – for the tax year 2008. Those returns included false claims related to the first-time home buyers credit.
You may recall that the first-time homebuyer’s credit was a refundable tax credit pushed through as a way to jump-start the economy after the housing bubble. Refundable credits are traditionally a magnet for fraudulent claims and this one was no different: initial reports indicated that nearly 100,000 refunds were perhaps inappropriately distributed, with $600 million of taxpayer credits labelled “suspicious” in 2009 (despite those numbers, Congress kept extending the credit).
Boswell and Ramos were two of those that took advantage of the system, filing false claims with information from unsuspecting taxpayers and pocketing the refunds. Eventually, however, the two were caught.
Ramos pleaded guilty to related charges last year and is awaiting sentencing.
Boswell faces up to 10 years in prison and a maximum fine of $250,000 when he is sentenced later this year.
