FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 28, 2006
CENTER TOWN CLERK AND FORMER SAGUACHE COUNTY COMMISSIONER SENTENCED FOR TAX PREPARER FRAUD
DENVER – Bill Leone, United States Attorney for the District of Colorado, and Terry L. Stuart, Special Agent In Charge of the IRS-Criminal Investigation, Denver Field Office, announced that CHARLES W. MCCLURE, age 58, of Center, Colorado, was sentenced today by U.S. District Court Judge Robert E. Blackburn to serve 5 months in federal prison, followed by 5 months of home detention. The defendant was also ordered to then serve one 1 year of supervised release, and ordered to pay restitution to the IRS of $1,996, for preparing false tax returns. Judge Blackburn ordered MCCLURE to report to a facility designated by the Bureau of Prisons by August 28, 2006.
MCCLURE was charged in a one count Criminal Information on March 14, 2006 with Aiding and Assisting in the Preparation of a False Income Tax Return. He pled guilty before Judge Blackburn to the Criminal Information on May 4, 2006. MCCLURE was a tax preparer and a Saguache County Commissioner at the time the crime occurred. He is presently the Clerk for the Town of Center.
According to the court filings, MCCLURE filed fraudulent tax forms in the names of low-income clients for non-existent small businesses, primarily home day care firms. This was done to increase his clients’ adjusted gross income and thereby boost the amount they received as tax refunds.
The IRS established the Questionable Refund Program to deal with the serious problem of refund fraud, which has increased significantly in recent years. “The IRS estimates that fraudulent refund claims now exceed a half-billion dollars a year,” said Terry L. Stuart, Special Agent in Charge of the IRS-Criminal Investigation, Denver Field Office.
Return preparer fraud generally involves the preparation and filing of false income tax returns by preparers who claim inflated personal or business expenses, false deductions, unallowable credits or excessive exemptions on returns prepared for their clients. Preparers may also manipulate income figures to obtain tax credits, such as the Earned Income Tax Credit, fraudulently.
In some situations, the client (taxpayer) may not have knowledge of the false expenses, deductions, exemptions and/or credits shown on their tax returns. However, when the IRS detects the false return, the taxpayer — not the return preparer — must pay the additional taxes and interest and may be subject to penalties.
The IRS Return Preparer Program focuses on enhancing compliance in the return-preparer community by investigating and referring criminal activity by return preparers to the Department of Justice for prosecution and/or asserting appropriate civil penalties against unscrupulous return preparers.
While most preparers provide excellent service to their clients, the IRS urges taxpayers to be very careful when choosing a tax preparer. Taxpayers should be as careful as they would be in choosing a doctor or a lawyer. “It is important to know that even if someone else prepares a tax return, the taxpayer is ultimately responsible for all the information on the tax return,” said Terry L. Stuart, Special Agent In Charge of the IRS-Criminal Investigation, Denver Field Office.
Special Agents with the IRS-Criminal Investigation Division conducted the investigation.
Assistant United States Attorney Matthew Kirsch prosecuted the case.
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