Back in 2013, Cedric K. Oliphant was convicted of falsifying a tax return.
Specifically, during his plea hearing today [August 30, 2013], Oliphant admitted he knowingly and willfully included materially false deductions for gifts to charity and for unreimbursed business expenses a client’s 2007 tax return. This tax return alone caused a loss to the U.S. Treasury in the approximate amount of $11,261.
Oliphant also admitted he had knowingly and willfully prepared and filed dozens more false federal income tax returns for other clients for tax years 2006 through 2008 that generated excessive refunds and cause aggregate losses to the IRS of totaling approximately $325,000.
Mr. Oliphant was released on bond awaiting sentencing. A condition of his release was that he stop preparing tax returns. I’m sure you’re ahead of me.
He was sentenced back in 2014:
In handing down the sentence today, Judge Harmon noted that Oliphant had prepared hundreds more tax returns with deductions similar to those described in the plea agreement indicating that actual losses to the National Treasury could be as much as $1 million.
Oliphant had been previously released on bond. However, that bond was revoked when it was determined he violated the conditions of his release by continuing to prepare tax returns after conviction. At that bond hearing on April 10, 2014, evidence demonstrated Oliphant had prepared and electronically filed at least 463 client tax returns during the 2014 filing season.
Fast forward to August 26, 2016 (just a week or so ago); Mr. Oliphant was released from prison. Mr. Oliphant’s troubles apparently weren’t behind him. Remember the accusation of preparing returns when he shouldn’t have been? The US Department of Justice alleges it was quite a bit more than that.
Oliphant had been previously charged and later convicted of preparing dozens of false 2006-08 client tax returns as part of his business – Oliphant Tax Services. He had been permitted to remain on bond during that time under a condition that he have no involvement in the preparation of tax returns other than his own. However, according to the new indictment, Oliphant continued to claim the same false deductions for unsuspecting clients while awaiting sentencing on the previous case.
As part of the scheme, the indictment alleges he changed the name of business to “Tax Services” to allegedly make it appear he had stopped preparing client tax returns and that someone else was the owner of his tax preparation business. Oliphant allegedly attributed the fees to the nominal owner of his tax office but manipulated those tax returns to make it appear the tax office had produced almost no taxable income.
But that’s not all. Mr. Oliphant allegedly used nominees to conceal what was going on:
The indictment also alleges Oliphant established a series of bank accounts in the names of others – including minors with custodians other than himself – so the fees could first be deposited to accounts in the names of the nominal owner of his tax office and others. He then allegedly transferred those fees through these intermediate accounts to accounts in his own name. This scheme enabled Oliphant to conceal his personal use of the fees generated by the business during the course of the prosecution on the first case, according to the charges.
The business allegedly generated $2 million in fees and a total loss to the IRS of another $400,000 or more as charged in the new indictment. As part of the his plea agreement in the earlier case, the losses from those false tax returns exceeded $325,000.
If you sign an agreement not to do something—especially if that agreement is with the government—it’s a very good idea to not do that something. And if you do that something, it’s a good idea to be on the up and up; you know you’re being watched. If these allegations are true, Mr. Oliphant might be heading right back to ClubFed.
