After 32 years of IRS work — and more than $100 million in resolved tax debt — I've seen just about every version of the problem you're dealing with. I'm Darrin Mish, a tax attorney in Tampa. Here's what you should know.
The IRS has its share of turncoats who turn against it after having worked for it before. A former IRS agent, Thomas W. Steelman, 72 of Blue Springs, Mo. was sentenced to 46 months in prison and fined $10.6 million in restitution to the IRS for his role in a fraudulent tax deduction scheme. The scheme was offered by a now defunct company, Renaissance – The Tax People. Steelman and at least half a dozen others, including Michael Craig Cooper, 53 the founder of Renaissance pleaded guilty to several counts of mail fraud, wire fraud and forging federal income tax returns claiming excessive amounts of Form W-4 exemptions.
The perpetrators of the crime launched the fraudulent tax deduction scheme and when members of the public enquired or expressed their objections to the scheme, Steelman used his background as a former IRS agent to reassure them claiming that “numerous experts have reviewed the scheme and had approved of it.”
The investigations were jointly conducted by the IRS, the US Postal Inspection Service and the US Department of Justice Tax Department.
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