Utah Resident Pleads Guilty to Tax Evasion, Filing Over $1.5 Million in False Claims for Refunds and Presenting $6.05 Million in Ficticious Financial Instruments

A man from Sandy, Utah, pleaded guilty today to one count of tax evasion, five counts of filing false claims for income tax refunds and three counts of filing fictitious obligations, the Justice Department and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced. 

Paul Ben Zaccardi, who was charged by superseding indictment on Jan. 8, was released following his guilty plea and is scheduled to be sentenced on March 11, 2015, before U.S. District Judge Tena Campbell.

According to the superseding indictment, in April 2004, Zaccardi embarked on a scheme to evade the payment of his income taxes.  As part of that scheme, Zaccardi re-titled his residence so that it was not in his name and caused his business receipts to be deposited into his wife’s account.

Zaccardi also presented five separate tax returns to the IRS claiming bogus refunds totaling $1,510,251.  In addition, from June 2008 to October 2011, Zaccardi presented three false and fictitious financial instruments to the IRS, the U.S. Treasury and the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah for a combined total of $6.05 million for the purported payment of his federal income tax liabilities. 

Zaccardi faces a statutory maximum sentence of 25 years in prison for each conviction of submitting fictitious obligations to the United States, a statutory maximum sentence of five years in prison for each conviction of presenting false, fictitious and fraudulent claims to the United States and a statutory maximum sentence of five years in prison for the tax evasion conviction.

This case was investigated by IRS-Criminal Investigation and prosecuted by Trial Attorneys Stuart Wexler and Ryan Raybould of the Justice Department’s Tax Division.