The Sun City Anthem (SCA) Board of Directors and certain Sun City Anthem Corporate Treasurers since 2002 and their auditor/tax preparer have been notified by the IRS they have failed to comply with Federal Tax Regulations.

The IRS has initially notified SCA it owes $1.345 Million in back taxes and penalties for the 2002-2007 tax returns.  Subsequent returns prepared in the same manner have not yet been audited.  Meanwhile, instead of following a smart strategy to minimize the back taxes and penalties, the board is following an ego-driven appeal strategy that is apparently wasting tens of thousands more of our dues.

Treasurers for 2002-2007  years were Favil West, Kay Dwyer and Roz Berman.   The Board’s auditor/tax preparer for that period was CPA Gary Lein and the association attorney was John Leach.   CPA Jack Troia was also personally involved as a (self-proclaimed) tax “expert” on the Finance Committee during most of the audit period.

While the involved directors, professional advisers, finance committee members and  community management company leaders are presumed innocent until proven guilty, one has to wonder what they were thinking after the board had been advised in 2008 they were filing false tax returns, and they refused to resolve the disputed issues?

Were any of them monitoring the Department of Justice public information being released about criminal convictions for filing false tax returns?  The following is just one quote from the [1] DOJ tax site.  It describes a case that appears to be far less damaging than the SCA case and the results should be very worrisome to many of the involved SCA individuals.

“Department of Justice Office of Public Affairs
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Baton Rouge, La., Tax Preparer Sentenced to Prison for Aiding in Preparation of False Tax Returns

WASHINGTON - Melissa Edwards was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Brian A. Jackson to 30 months in prison based on her plea of guilty to one count of willfully aiding and assisting in the preparation and filing of a false income tax return, the Justice Department and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced today. The court also ordered Edwards to serve a one-year term of supervised release following her prison term and to pay restitution to the IRS in the amount of $56,040. The case arises out of a March 31, 2010, indictment filed in the Middle District of Louisiana.

According to her plea agreement, Edwards, who worked at Jasmine and Melissa’s Tax Service in Baton Rouge, La., prepared fraudulent tax returns for 20 clients that reported falsely inflated telephone excise tax refund (TETR) credits in the total amount of $126,856. The TETR credit was a one-time credit available to taxpayers for the 2006 year. The sentencing court found that the tax loss, including all relevant conduct, was between $400,000, but less than $1 million.

John A. DiCicco, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Department of Justice Tax Division, commended the IRS Special Agents who investigated this case and Tax Division Trial Attorneys Kevin C. Lombardi and Matthew J. Mueller and Assistant U.S. Attorney Rene Salomon of the Middle District of Louisiana, who prosecuted the case.

More information about the Justice Department’s Tax Division and its enforcement efforts is available at [2] www.usdoj.gov/tax/”

 

For more information:

Sun City Anthem CAI IRS Audit Report–$1.345 Million Back Taxes Owed for 2007:

http://blog.anthemvoice.org/2011/03/02/irs-report-released-boardauditor-has-no-more-excuses/

[3] http://blog.anthemvoice.org/2011/02/19/reject-the-boards-shell-game-on-income-taxes/