A Round of Applause for Charlie Sheen’s Tax Team May Be in Order

This summer, actor Charlie Sheen announced that he’d beaten the IRS at its own game, marking this our first terror tale where the IRS wasn’t #WINNING. The agency grudgingly agreed to reduce his back tax debt from $7 million to $3.3 million.

How did the “Two and a Half Men” star do it? Well, he had an excellent tax resolution team behind him.

According to Forbes, the ordeal started when the IRS went after Sheen for back taxes from the years 2015, 2017, and 2018. Sheen’s debt totaled roughly $7 million, and he quickly entered negotiations with the IRS to reduce it. The actor offered first $1.24 million, then $3.1 million as an offer in compromise. But the IRS turned him down both times — the second time after he sent in a $626,000 down payment.

From there, things only got rockier. Sheen’s case bounced from IRS office to IRS office, and the agency refused his proposal of an installment agreement. Ultimately, the case ended up in tax court, where Sheen and his team won the eye-popping reduction to $3.3 million offer in compromise.

There’s only one downside to Sheen’s win: He signed an income collateral agreement. That means if he lands an Oscar-worthy acting role with a multimillion-dollar payout in the near future, the IRS “has a right to revisit the compromise and get some of that uptick in income,” according to Forbes.

Overall, though, Sheen’s case is a fantastic example of tax resolution work done right.

McCauley Law Offices may not have tiger blood, but we can help you out of your Tax Jam and make you a success story. Contact us today for a free consultation and let us get the IRS off your back.

Wayne Triche was sentenced to 41 months in prison for tax fraud and wire fraud for embezzling $937,658.77 from the New Orleans Firefighters Pension and Relief Fund.

In 2003, Triche and his business partner were given five million dollars from the Fund to manage and invest in life insurance policies. Triche’s partner died in 2007 and from 2009 to 2017 Triche funneled profits from the investments into his personal bank accounts 34 times.

He used the funds to cover a civil court judgment, expensive meals, travel, and clothing purchased on various credit cards, home improvement and gambling debts.

Triche failed to claim the embezzled funds on his tax returns and in addition to the prison sentence was ordered to pay the IRS restitution in the amount of $329,895. He was also ordered to pay back the Firefighters Fund the nearly one million dollars he embezzled.

McCauley Law Offices can help you out of your Tax Jam too! Contact us for a free consultation and let us help get the IRS off your back.

ER Physician Dr. Kevin Crandell was earning between $30,000 and $40,000 a month when he decided he no longer wanted to pay taxes and stopped filing returns in 2007.

Crandell began filing taxes again in 2013, after he was contacted by the IRS, but spent years fighting the agency over the six years when he didn’t file.

He submitted false information to the IRS claiming that his expenses exceeded his income, and failed to list assets and business bank accounts that he was using for personal expenses. Ultimately he blamed a tax resolution company he hired in 2010 for his tax troubles. However, during the trial it was revealed that he provided the service with check stubs he had altered to show a reduced income.

Crandell was sentenced to 33 months in prison and ordered to pay the IRS restitution in the amount of $972,493.

The owners of a successful auto body shop in Baltimore were each sentenced to one year and one day in prison for tax fraud. Ercin and Lizette Kalender were also ordered to pay restitution to the IRS in the amount of $2,219,602.

As part of their efforts to hide income from the IRS the Kalenders kept two sets of books, one that kept track of their actual sales and one that was given to their accountants.

For tax years 2015 to 2018 the Kalenders cashed more than 6.6 million dollars in checks at a check cashing facility and failed to report any of that income on their tax returns.

In 2018 the Kalenders tried to sell the business and shared the many ways they hid their income from the IRS with a prospective buyer who in actuality was an undercover federal agent. Ercin Kalender told the agent that he used to cash $50,000 to $60,000 in checks at a time but had recently reduced it to between $30,000 and $35,000. He also mentioned that his father had done the same thing for more than 30 years before he took over the business.

In 2019 the Kalenders became aware of the IRS investigation and reported gross receipts of 4.5 million dollars, double what they reported the year before.

Owners of 3 New York area Dippin Donuts stores John and Helen Zourdos and their son Dimitrios were convicted of tax evasion and filing false tax returns.

From 2012 to 2017 the family hid more than 4.5 million dollars in cash sales from the IRS by depositing the money into personal bank accounts, making most purchases in cash and providing their accountants with false information.

The three lived a lavish lifestyle that included luxury cars, expensive watches, investment accounts and real estate. They also paid several of their employees in cash to avoid paying payroll taxes.

John Zourdos was sentenced to 30 months in prison, his wife Helen was sentenced to 20 months, and their son Dimitrios was sentenced to 10 months. They were also ordered to pay restitution to the IRS in the amount of $2,000,769.

Alice Felder-Lucas was sentenced to more than three years in prison for filing a false tax return and theft of government funds. Felder-Lucas filed a tax return using false 1099 forms that claimed millions of dollars in income. She also listed millions of dollars in expenses.

Although her return was flagged for potential fraud by an IRS agent, she was inadvertently issued a refund of $708,190. By the time the IRS discovered the mistake, Felder-Lucas had purchased a house and car with the ill-gotten funds and only had $30,000 left. In addition to her prison sentence, Felder-Lucas was ordered to pay all outstanding tax balances to the IRS and to also pay $678,486.97 in restitution to the IRS.

McCauley Law Offices is here to help you out of your Tax Jam, just call us for a free consultation and let us work with you to review your case and your options. When the IRS knocks, let us answer.

William Britt, a former Georgia city councilman, was sentenced to 33 months in prison for failing to report income from several bars he co-owned near university campuses.

As part of the scheme, each bar was nominally owned by an individual, but in reality, all the bars were owned by a group of partners who skimmed cash from the bars, distributed it amongst themselves based on their ownership percentages, and never reported any of the income on their tax returns.

To throw off the IRS, Britt had the nominee owners file false tax returns and gave erroneous information to his accountant. He underreported the bars’ income and omitted cash distributions to the owners. By the time Britt’s house was raided by the IRS he and his partners had been under investigation for more than a year.

In addition to the prison sentence Britt was ordered to pay $352,404.54 in restitution to the IRS. His partners are awaiting trial.

McCauley Law Offices is here for you, we can help you out of your Tax Jam and get the IRS off your back for good! Contact us for a FREE consultation.