Florida Resident Sentenced To Prison For Preparing Fraudulent Tax Returns

Caused IRS Loss of More than $1.2 Million

   Joon H. Kim, the Acting United States for the Southern District of New York, and Stuart M. Goldberg, Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General of the Justice Department’s Tax Division, announced that DAMYON SHULER was sentenced today in White Plains federal court to 18 months in prison for filing false tax returns.  SHULER pled guilty in April before U.S. District Court Judge Nelson S. Román, who also imposed today’s sentence.

According to documents filed with the court, from February 2010 through March 2011, SHULER, 47, of Orange City, Florida, approached relatives and others and told them that he could claim slave reparations on their behalf by filing tax returns with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), for which he charged a $4,000 to $5,000 fee.  SHULER then filed 30 returns with the IRS on behalf of other taxpayers, claiming bogus refunds of between $48,184 and $61,300 on each return. 

To generate the fraudulent refunds, SHULER reported fake capital gains income and taxes paid on that income in the exact same amount.  He also attached to each return a form falsely reporting that a Treasury Department office or program identified as “Overpayment of Black Invest Taxes” had paid the taxes to the IRS.  To conceal that he prepared these returns, SHULER did not list himself as the preparer.  SHULER also filed a fraudulent 2009 income tax return for himself claiming a refund of $46,685 based on the same scheme.  In total, SHULER’s fraudulent refund scheme led to losses of more than $1.2 million.   

In addition to the term of prison imposed, U.S. District Court Judge Nelson S. Román ordered SHULER to serve one year of supervised release and to pay restitution to the IRS in the amount of $1,180,150.

Mr. Kim thanked IRS Criminal Investigation for its work on the investigation.