A Minneapolis man who had been on the lam for nearly four years was sentenced Tuesday for preparing false tax returns, the U.S. attorney’s office said today.

Yahya Muhumed Shakal, 40, was sentenced in U.S. District Court in St. Paul to 72 months in prison and one year of supervised release. In April, he pleaded guilty to four counts of aiding and assisting in the preparation of false tax returns.

Shakal, a former Hennepin County welfare worker, filed tax returns for 2002 and 2003 through Amal Tax Return and Salama Tax Service in Minneapolis, according to the federal indictment from March 2009. Tax preparers are not required to have a license or even education in the field.

For those periods, Shakal prepared more than 1,200 federal individual income tax returns, the indictment said. He claimed more than $2 million in false fuel-tax credits on more than 1,000 of the returns, according to the indictment.

Only people who use off-road vehicles or heavy construction machinery can claim the fuel tax credit. It cannot be claimed for personal use of fuel or in ordinary vehicles. Shakal knew those taxpayers had not used gasoline for nontaxable purposes, the U.S. attorney’s office said.

Like Shakal, many of the clients affected were Somali.

Shakal was indicted in April 2005 and later fled to Canada. Officials caught him in Edmonton and he was extradited to the United States in February 2009.

Source: twincities

By Rhoda Fukushima
[email protected]

Emily Gurnon contributed to this report.

Comments

comments