m***y
发帖数: 14763 | 1 IRS agent among 14 charged with tax credit fraud
March 24, 2011 03:31 PM E-mail| |Comments (3)| Text size – +
By Jenifer B. McKim, Globe Staff
Fourteen people, including an Internal Revenue Service employee, have been
charged with using the federal credit for first-time homebuyers to commit
tax fraud, US Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz said today.
The defendants, most of them from Massachusetts, were charged in multiple
indictments related to filing false tax returns linked to the federal credit
that was launched in 2008 in an attempt to stimulate the flailing housing
market. The credit, which was extended and expanded over time, offered first
-time homebuyers up to $8,000 off their tax bill if they purchased a home
before last September.
One of those charged is a long-time IRS agent, Michael Doyle, of New
Hampshire. He allegedly falsely claimed that he bought a home in 2008 to
qualify for the credit, but actually purchased the property in 2007, Ortiz's
office said. Doyle, 44, could not immediately be reached for comment, and
an IRS official could not say whether Doyle still works for the federal
agency.
Two other defendants, Junior Lopez of Southbridge, and Christopher Proe of
Michigan, allegedly filed more than 50 fraudulent tax returns, receiving
about $500,000 in refunds, prosecutors said. Proe and Lopez also could not
immediately be reached for comment.
"It is critically important that taxpayers who play by the rules do not end
up paying for refunds to people who commit fraud and blatantly lie on the
forms submitted to the IRS,'' Ortiz said in a prepared statement.
J. Russell George, the Treasury's inspector general for tax administration,
said it is "especially troubling" when an IRS agent is implicated in a fraud
case. "Congress created and modified the home buyer credit to stimulate and
help taxpayers achieve the America Dream, not to line the pockets of
wrongdoers,'' George said. |
|
