Tax Refund Scheme Doesn’t Pay
Charlene L. Saucier, 37, of Sacramento, Calif., was sentenced to 18 months in prison for her role in a scheme to submit fraudulent tax returns to the IRS seeking refunds. Saucier was also ordered to pay $2,273 in restitution to the IRS.
Saucier’s former husband, Tavoris Timane Saucier, 28, of North Highlands, Calif., was previously sentenced to five months in prison and three years of supervised release in connection with the same scheme.
According to Asst. U.S. Attys. Camil A. Skipper and Benjamin B. Wagner, Charlene Saucier admitted in her guilty plea that, in 2004 and 2005, the Sauciers recruited individuals willing to submit fraudulent tax returns to the IRS and that she prepared tax returns for at least two such individuals using false income and dependent information so that they appeared to qualify for refunds under the Earned Income Credit (EIC) provisions of the tax code. She and her former husband had agreed to split with those individuals any refunds issued by the IRS as a result of the false claims.
In 2000, Charlene Saucier pleaded guilty in Sacramento federal court to a nearly identical phony tax return scheme in which she admitted to preparing false tax returns seeking EIC refunds. She served a one-year sentence in that case.
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Tags: false federal income tax returns
