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Local Tax Preparer Bilked Feds Out Of $1M: IRS A man who operated a tax preparation business in the Pathmark Shop-ping Center at 110-20 Flatlands Ave-nue for a number of years has been arrested and charged with 32 counts of filing false and fraudulent claims. A federal indictment handed down last week cites illegal claims that total al-most $1 million. Internal Revenue Service special agent and spokesman Joseph Foy told the Canarsie Courier that Patrick Uzoe-fune, 46, of Hempstead, New York, who also goes by other aliases, including Patrick Cheemooke and John Okoh, operated his tax business as Universal Tax Group here, and another in Elmont, NY, called Kings Premium Brokerage. "The defendant created more 'shell' companies," Foy said, "which engaged in little or no legitimate business and served primarily as vehicles through which he could obtain fraudulent tax refunds." He said Uzoefune filed false forms on behalf of the tax preparation business from 1999 through 2005, with some of them claiming fuel tax credits for the purchase of off-highway fuel and claims of credits for taxes paid on undistributed capital gains. "Those were just some of the business-related frauds," said the IRS agent. "He prepared the individual forms (1040) for taxpayers, including himself, and submitted the returns to the IRS throughout those years." Parts of the forms claimed entitlement to certain reductions in gross in-come, including exemptions for minor dependents and amounts purportedly spent on child care expenses. The in-dictment states that the forms he prepared were "false and fictitious, and the taxpayers were not entitled to those credits and deductions in the amount claimed." The indictment notes specifically that Uzoefune submitted claims "the de-fendant knew to be materially false, fictitious and fraudulent...when he well knew and believed he was not entitled to such refunds." The total amount of fraudulent refunds claimed by the defendant comes to $983,714, including a refund of $13,672 to the Moore Blessing African Market, Inc. in May of 2002, $9,483 to Levi General Store, Inc.; another $43,769 to Levi General Store in 2004 and even a $10,486 refund to himself in May of 2005, plus at least 30 others. "This guy has a history of criminal activity in the financial fraud arena," said Foy. "He was indicted in October of 2003 for making false statements to IRS agents and was subsequently sentenced to four months imprisonment, a $5,000 fine and three years supervised release. Of course, at that time he was not allowed to prepare tax returns for anyone but himself." He said Uzoefune violated conditions of his release on a number of occasions and since last May has been incarcerated at the Metropolitan Cor-rectional Center in Manhattan, with release date of June, 2007. "Our criminal investigation division has excellent investigators at our Fraud Detection Center in Holtsville, Long Island, as well as special agents in the field who have been more than instrumental in catching up with this guy and others." Foy said.
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