A Forsyth County man who went to great lengths not to pay taxes has been sentenced to nearly four years in prison.
A federal jury found Daniel Edward Turner, 43, guilty in March of obstruction and mailing fraudulent financial instruments to the Internal Revenue Service and the Department of the Treasury.
In addition to three years and 10 months in federal prison, U.S. District Judge Richard W. Story sentenced Turner on Friday to five years of supervised release and fined him $5,000. He also was ordered to pay $114,053 to the IRS.
Turner had reportedly attempted to deceive the IRS for years, refusing to follow rules regarding filing income taxes.
U.S. Attorney David E. Nahmias said in a statement that Turner also “caused confusion and delay in the investigation by filing false claims against innocent IRS employees.”
“In time, the justice system saw through his lies and smokescreens, and now he will pay a real price in federal prison,” Nahmias said.
It was the second tax-related case of the week with Forsyth County ties.
Tuesday in federal court, former local chiropractor Michael J. Falite pleaded guilty to tax fraud.
Sentencing for Falite, 41, is scheduled for Aug. 18. He faces up to three years in prison and a fine of $315,258.
Falite was charged in May with one count of filing a false income tax return. According to a U.S. Attorney's Office report, Falite falsely stated 90 percent of his income from Falite Family Chiropractic in Alpharetta went to a nonexistent partner company.
He then used the money to pay personal expenses, including house and car payments.
According to a report from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Turner obstructed several tax laws from 1998 to 2007 by “not filing tax returns, not paying taxes, hiding income, sending false financial instruments to the IRS and the Treasury and falsely claiming that IRS employees committed misconduct.”
Those employees included the IRS district director, the chief of the automated collection service and the revenue agent who audited him.
From April 1998 to February 2004, the report shows, Turner submitted more than $491,000 in bogus financial instruments known as bills of exchange to the Treasury and IRS as payment he owed.
According to the report, “these bogus ‘bills of exchange’ took various forms, some of which appeared similar to regular checks, but were fraudulent in that they attempted to draw funds from non-existent accounts with the U.S. Treasury Department.”
Evidence presented at trial showed that Turner disrupted IRS collection activities in 2004 by causing a contractor from his residential framing business to issue about $93,000 in payments to someone else for services rendered to Turner in an effort to hide his true income from the IRS.
E-mail Julie Arrington at juliearrington@forsythnews.com.
A federal jury found Daniel Edward Turner, 43, guilty in March of obstruction and mailing fraudulent financial instruments to the Internal Revenue Service and the Department of the Treasury.
In addition to three years and 10 months in federal prison, U.S. District Judge Richard W. Story sentenced Turner on Friday to five years of supervised release and fined him $5,000. He also was ordered to pay $114,053 to the IRS.
Turner had reportedly attempted to deceive the IRS for years, refusing to follow rules regarding filing income taxes.
U.S. Attorney David E. Nahmias said in a statement that Turner also “caused confusion and delay in the investigation by filing false claims against innocent IRS employees.”
“In time, the justice system saw through his lies and smokescreens, and now he will pay a real price in federal prison,” Nahmias said.
It was the second tax-related case of the week with Forsyth County ties.
Tuesday in federal court, former local chiropractor Michael J. Falite pleaded guilty to tax fraud.
Sentencing for Falite, 41, is scheduled for Aug. 18. He faces up to three years in prison and a fine of $315,258.
Falite was charged in May with one count of filing a false income tax return. According to a U.S. Attorney's Office report, Falite falsely stated 90 percent of his income from Falite Family Chiropractic in Alpharetta went to a nonexistent partner company.
He then used the money to pay personal expenses, including house and car payments.
According to a report from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Turner obstructed several tax laws from 1998 to 2007 by “not filing tax returns, not paying taxes, hiding income, sending false financial instruments to the IRS and the Treasury and falsely claiming that IRS employees committed misconduct.”
Those employees included the IRS district director, the chief of the automated collection service and the revenue agent who audited him.
From April 1998 to February 2004, the report shows, Turner submitted more than $491,000 in bogus financial instruments known as bills of exchange to the Treasury and IRS as payment he owed.
According to the report, “these bogus ‘bills of exchange’ took various forms, some of which appeared similar to regular checks, but were fraudulent in that they attempted to draw funds from non-existent accounts with the U.S. Treasury Department.”
Evidence presented at trial showed that Turner disrupted IRS collection activities in 2004 by causing a contractor from his residential framing business to issue about $93,000 in payments to someone else for services rendered to Turner in an effort to hide his true income from the IRS.
E-mail Julie Arrington at juliearrington@forsythnews.com.