Feds pursue tax fraud cases
FROM STAFF REPORTS Gulf Breeze News news@gulfbreezenews.com

Picture courtesy of Dani Simmonds In an effort to allow ordinary citizens to retain more of their income, the federal government is cracking down on tax fraud.

The United States has filed civil injunction complaints in three federal courts on the east and west coasts, including a suit against a Ft. Walton based company, seeking to bar promotions of alleged tax-fraud schemes. The government complaints and other court papers allege that a multilevel marketing organization called Pinnacle Quest International (PQI) and a number of individuals and organizations currently or formerly affiliated with it are promoting a variety of fraudulent tax defier schemes.

The suits allege that PQI, based in Ft. Walton Beach, Fla., is a successor to Institute of Global Prosperity, a business that sold tax-fraud schemes until lawenforcement actions caused it to shut down. Daniel Andersen, co-founder of Global Prosperity, pleaded guilty in 2004 to a federal felony tax charge. Last November another Global Prosperity co-founder, David Alan Struckman, was found guilty of tax evasion and conspiracy in a federal court in Seattle. According to the PQI injunction complaint, PQI took up where Global Prosperity left off, and has been promoting tax-fraud schemes similar to those that Global Prosperity formerly promoted.

The complaint filed against PQI alleges that the organization has 830 salespeople, thousands of customers, and gross sales from 2002 through 2006 of approximately $54 million. During the same period, PQI's leaders allegedly received commissions from sales of PQI products of approximately $8.8 million.

Court papers allege the defendants have sold tax-fraud and other schemes through vendors at trade-show-like conferences at resorts around the world and -- in one instance -- at a 400-person conference on the Celebrity Cruise Line ship Galaxy in the Mediterranean Sea in May of 2007. The complaint describes PQI vendors as "a Who's Who of notorious tax defiers."

The complaint alleges that one PQI promoter on the Galaxy cruise was Sherry Peel Jackson, a former IRS revenue agent turned promoter of frivolous tax theories. Jackson allegedly earned some $138,000 in commissions on sales of PQI products from 2002 to 2006. She was indicted by a federal court in Atlanta, Ga. shortly before the cruise and was convicted of tax crimes last year by a federal jury. In February of this year Jackson was sentenced to four years in prison for those crimes.

A list of the alleged PQI conference locations and dates is provided at the end of this press release. Copies of the three injunction complaints will be posted today on the Justice Department Tax Division's website.

The suit against PQI was filed recently in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida, in Pensacola. Named as defendants in addition to PQI are Claudia Hirmer of Niceville, Fla., alleged to be the de facto leader of PQI's "Executive Council," and other individuals alleged to be members of PQI's Executive Council.

The other two suits were filed in Portland, Ore., and Tacoma, Wash., in the U.S. District Courts for the District of Oregon and the Western District of Washington.

"The size and sheer brazenness of the tax defier activities alleged in these complaints are staggering," said Nathan J. Hochman, Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department's Tax Division. "Tax defiers sometimes claim to be 'patriots,' but those who push bogus tax schemes are nothing more than con artists, and those who pay for these schemes are buying nothing but trouble."

"Tax scheme promoters should be aware that we will continue to work closely with the Justice Department to shut them down," said IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman. "Taxpayers should carefully review any questionable advice because they are responsible for what goes on their tax returns."