Thaindian News

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS (BNO NEWS) – A Skokie, Illinois man was charged with conspiracy to claim false tax refunds which resulted in false refunds totaling more than $1.3 million, prosecutors said on Monday.

Ovidiu Isac, 28, and co-conspirators allegedly participated in a conspiracy since March 2008 to claim more than $2.1 million in fraudulent federal income tax refunds. Isac and the others shared the proceeds of Internal Revenue Service (IRS) tax refunds by withdrawing the tax funds deposited into co-schemers’ bank accounts, knowing that they were not entitled to the fraudulently obtained refunds.

The IRS Fraud Detection Center detected a scheme for the 2007 tax year, composed of 251 false tax returns filed electronically, claiming refunds totaling more than $1.48 million. The fraudulent claims involved documents containing false income and deductions for moving expenses and were submitted in the name of Romanian nationals.

The IRS also identified an identical scheme for the tax years 2008 and 2009. For 2008, 127 false tax returns were filed, claiming refunds of more than $640,000.

The investigation revealed that the false claims were deposited in a bank account in Chicago. All the names had common Eastern European spellings. The employers identified on the submitted documents, had not employed the taxpayers or paid the reported wages.

Agents reviewed bank records for the accounts into which the tax refunds were deposited and found that none of the names or addresses on the bank accounts matched the names or addresses of the individuals named as taxpayers on the false tax returns. They also discovered that the money was withdrawn after the deposit and sent by check to Isac.

Isac got the 70 percent of the sum, the account holder only 10 percent and the rest to another so-conspirator.

Isac faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $250,000. If convicted his sentence term will be imposed based on the advisory United States Sentencing Guidelines.