Taxable Talk

One of my clients is expecting their first child at any moment. Their new baby will be their first dependent for their 2014 tax returns. Mahamadou Daffe of Queens, New York had other ideas about dependents.

Mr. Daffe stole identities of various children and then offered, for $1,000 per tax return he prepared, to “give” those children to his clients. That’s one way to grow a family but it’s highly illegal.

But Mr. Daffe had additional means of making money. He stole other identities (presumably adults) and used those to prepare tax returns with phony W-2s and took the profits. We’re not talking peanuts here; he asked for over $4.5 million over four-plus years (and received more than $1.5 million).

The good news is that the IRS caught on to his scheme, and Mr. Daffe was sentenced to 102 months at ClubFed; he was found guilty earlier this year. As a reminder, you are responsible for what is on your tax return. And you can only claim your dependents, not anyone else’s.

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 27th, 2014 at 9:30 pm and is filed under Tax Fraud. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.