The stars who gave bribes to universities will fall under a big check of the tax service

The federal authorities claim that the well-known scheme of fraud upon admission to college allowed wealthy parents not only to “arrange” their children in well-known educational institutions, but also to write off bribes from taxes. Now some of them may have problems with the law right up to the prison term. Additional criminal charges and tough financial penalties are not excluded.

Фото: Depositphotos

Recall that the Massachusetts State Attorney's Office 12 March published details of a massive fraudulent scheme for admission to prestigious universities in the country. In the incomplete list of accused - 50 people. In the center of the scheme is William "Rick" Singer, owner of a company preparing for entering universities.

According to investigators, since 2011, Singer received about $ 25 million from wealthy parents to the accounts of his formally charitable organization as bribes to guarantee admission of children to elite universities. The payments were made as charitable donations, and therefore the bribes paid to Singer were not taxed.

The US Internal Revenue Service also claims that most of those who paid admission counseling funds to disguise bribes, but who have not yet been charged with fraud, will also face IRS verification.

Among 33 prominent parents accused in this case, Hollywood stars Lori Laughlin and Felicity Huffman, who have not yet commented publicly on this matter. Actresses and others, including the husband of fashion designer Laughlin Mossimo Jannoulli, are planning to appear for the first time this week in a federal court in Boston.

The Singer Foundation sent letters of thanks to parents for donations, which allowed many of them to deduct payments from their taxes as charitable contributions, prosecutors say.

After Singer began working with investigators in the hope of receiving a lenient verdict, the FBI made him call his parents and pretend that his foundation was being monitored by the IRS in an attempt to get them to admit their involvement in the scheme.

The IRS, which was investigating the criminal case with the FBI, said it was considering donating to parents, although at the time of writing, none of the parents were charged with tax evasion.

Some experts suspect that investigators have additional charges against parents in an attempt to convince them to quickly plead guilty.

To convict them of tax crimes, prosecutors have to prove that they not only deliberately underpaid, but also knew that they were breaking the law when they did it.

“Ignorance is not an excuse for breaking the law, but in the tax world it is,” said Philip Hackney, who worked in the IRS attorney general's office and now teaches at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law.

But parents will certainly pay serious IRS fines, experts say.

According to Lloyd Hitoshi Meier, a professor at the Faculty of Law at the University of Notre Dame, in addition to paying the taxes that are due to them, parents can receive at least an 20 percent penalty. Some may be fined for civilian fraud, which amounts to 75% of the amount of underpayments to tax.

Recall that singer charged conspiring to extortion, money laundering and obstruction of justice. The case involves 31 parent and 18 administrators, examiners, and sports coaches from several large and prestigious American universities (including Yale, Stanford, Georgetown, and the University of Southern California).

According to investigators, Singer helped his clients' children fraudulently to get higher scores on SAT / ACT tests for graduates. He advised clients to get a doctor's opinion that their children had learning problems: this gave adolescents extra time on tests and the opportunity to pass them separately from other students.

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