Surrogate scam; truck stop; the nose job; and other highlights of recent tax cases.
Las Vegas: Tax preparer Jesus S. Castro, 39, has been sentenced to 46 months in prison for failing to collect and pay over federal employment taxes, causing a tax loss to the IRS of more than $9.6 million.
In 2014, Castro began operating Castro Enterprise, a tax prep business also known as Castro Enterprises or Castro Taxes Services. From at least 2015 to 2019, he failed to report wages and employment taxes owed for his employees. Additionally, he filed numerous returns on behalf of clients with incorrect deductions and credits.
Castro, who pleaded guilty in November, caused a total tax loss of $9,620,377.72.
He was also sentenced to three years of supervised release and ordered to pay $399,387.87 in restitution.
Hillsboro, Oregon: Bookkeeper Melodie Ann Eckland has been sentenced to prison for engaging in a multiyear scheme to defraud her nonprofit employer and her extended family.
From at least 2011 until April 2018, she was a bookkeeper for a local adoption and surrogacy agency. Her duties included maintaining agency books and records, managing payroll, filing employment tax returns and paying quarterly federal employment taxes. She also provided financial statements to the agency’s board of directors but did not have signature authority over the organization’s business bank account.
She made unauthorized wire transfers and wrote unauthorized checks to herself; she also transferred agency…
