The Internal Revenue Service’s Criminal Investigation Division has opened up intensive investigations relating to tax and money laundering cases involving COVID-19 relief and has, to date, uncovered fraud totaling $3.2 billion.
236 Sentenced to Federal Prison
To date, the IRS has found fraud in 975 cases they have investigated including a large amount of criminal activity, including fraudulently obtained loans, credits and payments meant for American workers, families and small businesses. The IRS Criminal Investigation Division (CID) has handed out over 458 indictments for alleged COVID-related crimes, with 236 individuals who have been sentenced to federal prison.
In a new brief, CID [recently] released these statistics and announced that there was more to come. The Criminal Investigation Division is focusing their investigations at those who have fraudulently or in many cases converted funds from various federal relief programs to personal use, those programs including the Paycheck Protection Program and the Employee Retention Credit, which have seen the highest fraudulent exploitation.
The IRS Criminal Investigation Division stated it has achieved nearly 100% conviction rate in prosecuted cases to date.
Whistleblower Assistance Request
The IRS is actively seeking whistleblower assistance should you know of anyone or business that fraudulently applied for and misused the various relief programs for their own use including those who converted funds to personal use.
A whistleblower claim can be filed with IRS Form 211, with instructions at IRS.gov.
[NOTE FROM AOA: Rental assistance programs were structured in different ways. Some, (like Federal programs) sent money directly to the rental housing providers and in other cases, local programs may have given money directly to the renters with strict instructions that “you must use the money to pay what you owe”.
Did you assist one of your tenants with paperwork or do you suspect one of your tenants possibly received funds from a rental assistance program that you never received? Maybe it’s worth looking into.]
Peter Muffoletto is with Peter Muffoletto & Company and may be reached at (818) 346-2160, or you can visit us on the web at www.petemcpa.com.