LAS VEGAS — This is an official press release from the U.S. Department of Justice (USAO - Nevada), published as received.
LAS VEGAS – Yesterday, a federal jury convicted a Las Vegas man for executing a fraudulent tax withholding scheme in an attempt to obtain nearly $1 million in tax refunds through the filing of fraudulent tax returns for himself and his companies.
Following a four-day trial, Anthony Uvari (57) was found guilty of four counts of making and subscribing false tax returns. U.S. District Judge Andrew Gordon presided over the trial and scheduled a sentencing hearing for March 8, 2023. For each count of making and subscribing a false tax return, Uvari faces a statutory maximum penalty of three years in prison, a term of supervised release, and a fine.
According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, between February 2012 and May 2013, Uvari filed (or caused to be filed) four tax returns that falsely claimed six different businesses had paid him or his companies income, but withheld more than $900,000 of income tax on his behalf and paid it to the IRS. The government also presented evidence at trial that the defendant had filed individual income tax returns for 2007-2010 with the same pattern of using false tax withholdings to claim fraudulent tax refunds. As a result, he requested from the IRS over $900,000 in fraudulent income tax refunds. The IRS paid out more than $300,000 in fraudulently obtained refunds before detecting Uvari’s scheme and denying the remaining refund requests.
On his 2011 individual income tax return, Uvari claimed nearly $600,000 in tax withholdings from purported winnings on horse racing wagers from off-track betting organizations, but according to evidence presented at trial, the IRS had no record of these winnings or withholdings. Furthermore, according to testimony of four witnesses at trial, two of the off-track betting organizations were not even in business at the time of the claimed wagers and withholdings, and two others had no records of the bets claimed by the defendant during the relevant time period. Uvari also filed three corporate tax returns on behalf of two shell companies he controlled, claiming hundreds of thousands of dollars of tax withholdings from a Canadian bank. However, a representative of the Canadian bank testified at trial that the bank had not conducted these financial transactions with Uvari or his companies, had not made these payments to Uvari or his companies, and had not withheld this income tax on behalf of Uvari or his companies.
U.S. Attorney Jason M. Frierson for the District of Nevada and Special Agent in Charge Albert Childress of the IRS Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI) made the announcement.
This case was investigated by IRS-CI. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Eric Schmale and Jessica Oliva are prosecuting the case.
