Father-daughter team, Thein Maung and Phyo Mi, ran a fraudulent tax-preparation business along with a side biz that filed fraudulent unemployment benefits. All from the comfort of their family’s home. What makes this more incredible, is that Maung and Mi catered their fraudulent services to immigrants and refugees who worked at meat-packing facilities in Iowa and who had little or no ability to read, write, or speak English.
Without their customers’ knowledge or approval, Maung and Mi included on their customers’ federal tax returns, and fraudulent items. For example, false claims for residential energy credits, business-expense deductions, or moving-expense deductions for members of the United States Armed Forces (So how could this be claimed if not a citizen?). The effect of Maung and Mi including fraudulent items on the tax documents was to increase the refunds their clients received and increase Maung and Mi’s customer base. In all, from 2018 to 2022, Maung and Mi filed over 1600 tax returns to be filed from their Ottumwa, Iowa residence. The fraudulent tax returns claimed over $3.5 million in residential energy credits. That’s a lot of windows and doors.
Maung and Mi also offered to help customers apply for unemployment benefits from Iowa Workforce Development. Don’t you need a legitimate SSN to get unemployment? Without their customers’ knowledge or approval, Maung and Mi submitted materials to Iowa Workforce Development directing that their customers’ benefits payments be sent to financial institution accounts that Maung and Mi had access to. From October 2020 through March 2021, Maung and Mi directed nearly $100,000 in fraudulent unemployment insurance benefits payments be sent from Iowa Workforce Development to their accounts, instead of to the eligible claimants. But really- none of the claimants were eligible since they weren’t even U.S. citizens.
Great job by the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation from stopping these father-daughter team.
Sentencings for both Maung and Mi are scheduled for September 27, 2023.
Today’s Fraud Of The Day is based on article “Ottumwa father & daughter to be sentenced for fraud convictions on September 27th” published by CBS Iowa on June 5, 2023
A father and daughter in southeast Iowa have been convicted of conspiring to defraud the Internal Revenue Service, after filing hundreds of false tax returns and committing millions of dollars in fraud.
The Dept. of Justice reports Thein Maung, 47, and Phyo Mi, 21 ran a fake tax preparation business from their home in Ottumwa, mainly targeting immigrants and refugees who couldn’t read, write, or speak English.
