Former IRS agent convicted of filing false tax returns

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The IRS headquarters building in Washington, D.C.

A former special agent in the Internal Revenue Service’s Criminal Investigation unit was convicted on charges of filing false tax returns, obstruction of justice, and stealing government money.

A jury in Sacramento, California, found Alena Aleykina guilty of the charges on June 15 after a two-week trial. She had been indicted in 2016 on the charges (see Former IRS special agent indicted on tax charges).

Aleykina, of Sacramento, is a CPA and holds a master’s degree in business administration. Prosecutors accused her of filing three false personal tax returns for 2009, 2010, and 2011 and three returns in the names of trusts she created for years 2010 and 2011. On her personal tax returns, prosecutors said she fraudulently claimed the head of household filing status, false dependents, and deductions for education expenses to which she was not entitled. She also falsely claimed on a trust tax return to be paying wages to her mother and her sister to care for her son and for her father, according to the charges.

Aleykina allegedly also stole government funds from the IRS’s Tuition Assistance Program by falsely claiming $4,000 in tuition reimbursement for classes that she didn’t take and obstructed justice during the investigation. When criminal investigators asked her to retrieve her government laptop, she allegedly lied to the agents about its location and started deleting files after the agents left. The total loss to the government from Aleykina’s conduct is estimated at more than $60,000.

Sentencing for Aleykina is scheduled for September. She faces up to three years in prison for each false tax return count, 10 years in prison for theft of government funds, and 20 years in prison for obstruction of justice. The court could also order her to serve extra time on supervised release, and pay restitution and monetary penalties.

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Tax crimes Tax fraud IRS
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