Montana couple pleads guilty to tax fraud

[TexasTowelie]

MISSOULA, Mont. (AP) — A northwestern Montana couple has pleaded guilty in a tax fraud case that alleges they hid assets and failed to pay more than $376,000 in federal taxes.

John and Peggy DeYoung, both 71, pleaded guilty Wednesday to one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States. They face five years in prison and a restitution order when they are sentenced on April 21.

The U.S. Justice Department said the DeYoungs opened bank accounts in the names of four trusts using false Employer Identification Numbers and paid more than $1.4 million in personal expenses out of those trust accounts between 2010 and 2015.

Prosecutors allege the DeYoungs were customers of a Wyoming business, Creative Consulting Group, which used a scam trust scheme to help customers hide income. Owner Joseph Hill of Cheyenne was sentenced in August 2015 to just over three years in federal prison for conspiracy to defraud the United States.

http://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/ap_news/montana/montana-couple-pleads-guilty-to-tax-fraud/article_11e17f53-e642-5e6a-8473-5f26e94d9302.html

[HassleCat]

1. Don't fall for this.

There are books and web sites that promise to show you says to pay little or no federal taxes. If you get involved with one of these schemes, you could end up in prison.

[TexasTowelie]

2. Yes, I had a young friend who ran into some financial difficulty

and in the process it turned out that he was reading propaganda that advised people to abandon their credit card debts by using the sovereign citizen strategy when dealing with the court system. I recognized it quickly for what it was and gave him the news about what a sham it was. He trusted my guidance about the matter since he knew that I would never advise to do anything that wasn't in his best interest and decided to deal with his problems head-on rather than through the novel ideas found on the Internet. He is struggling, but at least he isn't in jail.