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Man Convicted For $80 Million IRS Tax Refund Scam

Man Convicted For $80 Million IRS Tax Refund Scam

A Milwaukee-based man has been convicted for a scheme to defraud the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to receive $80 million in fraudulent refunds.

According to an official release, Francis T. Burns was convicted on October 11, 2022 following a two-day jury trial. In December 2019, Burns was indicted on counts of wire fraud, mail fraud, money laundering, and submitting a false claim to the IRS.

Per the IRS release, Burns engaged in his scheme between 2016 and 2019. During that period of time, he claimed to be filing tax returns for a non-existent estate. His federal returns were based on fraudulent 1099 documents that falsely claimed large sums of money were withheld. 

Burns's five false returns requested federal tax refunds totaling over $80 million. 

The IRS noted that, although Burns was never granted the majority of these funds, he used the fraudulent refunds he did receive to purchase "an expensive house in Chicago, a Mercedes, and other personal expenses."

The IRS has since seized these assets. 

Burns will be sentenced by U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman on January 4, 2023. He faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison on both the mail fraud and wire fraud convictions, 10 years imprisonment on the money laundering conviction, and five years in federal prison for filing a false IRS claim. 

Judge Adelman can also order three years of supervised probation on each count.

What do you think about Burns's tax refund scam?

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Rebekah Barton

Rebekah Barton

Rebekah's search engine optimization career began completely by accident as a college student. Over the course of her career so far, she has "grown up" with the SEO industry, from writing content while juggling classes to managing her own teams of writers and overseeing SEO strategy in subsequent roles. She is excited to bring her passion for high-quality content to CountingWorks, Inc.

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