This month’s guest post is courtesy of Theresa Payton, the Chief Advisor and CEO of Fortalice, LLC.

Have you ever had your credit card company reverse a charge on your card because it was not you?  Sounds reassuring, right?  Well, if you are a business owner, those same protections do not extend to you.  Cybercriminals know this!  Business owners are a prime target of cybercriminals.  The cybercriminals target your business using hundreds of thousands of computers in their control, often called bots, short for robots.

It is a business owner’s worst nightmare – Imagine logging into your business banking account to make your payroll and the balance is zero.  Unlike your personal card or bank account which are protected under a law known as Regulation E, many people do not realize that banks are not always held liable. (more…)

Recently, it was reported that fraudster/actor Wesley Snipes was granted permission to travel outside of the United States in order to work on two movies – Gallowwalker and Chasing the Dragon. Snipes defrauded the United States government, and in my opinion each and every tax paying citizen of our great nation – when he willfully refused to pay taxes due since 1999. The sum of money owed is not known exactly (no tax returns were filed), but his earnings during this time were in excess of $38 million.

My assumption is that much of the money he owes has been spent or is “hidden” and will not be turned over or seized by the government. This is where many tax payers would negotiate with the Internal Revenue Service and get an agreed upon settlement on the debt. I hope they do not allow Snipes to get away with this. This was not an error, an oversight, or the result of poor tax advice. Snipes made $38 million and claimed that he owed no taxes. I don’t care who your accountant and tax advisor is – anyone would know that this was not correct. Snipes knew exactly what he was doing AND knew he was defrauding the United States. Snipes should be made to repay every penny plus interest plus any and all related penalties before he gets to keep a dime of it for himself.

Now to the travel. If he is to make money to repay the government, he must make movies. Based on Snipes’ extremely shaky ethics, I doubt many people would hire him to perform a real job. Also, I doubt he has the mental capability to make a good deal of money at anything other than acting – well, anything legal anyway. I have several questions related to the travel.

Firstly, we not have first got some sort of assurance from the governments that he is traveling to that he would not be able to take refuge there? How do we guarantee he comes back. This was the main reason that the ability to travel was up in the air to begin with.

Secondly, who is getting paid for this acting. Are the “paychecks” cut to Snipes or are they cut to some entity that he has set up that technically is not in violation of paying taxes. If the entity is paying Snipes a “salary,” of say $50K a year – the government may only garnish a small percentage of his salary (I think 10%). The rest of the millions will set in the Corporation and only current taxes will have to be paid. I hope that all this was thought out and planned by the judges who granted him the right to travel. My guess is the Snipes is O.J.’d up and will not have to pay the money he owes the United States for a long long time – if ever.

Third, why is he not in jail? How many other people are in jail for tax fraud in much smaller amounts? The man was convicted – of three counts. He received a maximum of 3 years in jail and was told he would be notified of when and where to report to begin serving his sentence. What? Don’t you start serving your sentence when you are convicted? Why is he allowed to keep traveling and making movies? Shouldn’t this crook be in a jail cell?

For my final point, I want to ask who wants to go see these movies? I am not talking about the genre of movies, but rather who actually wants to go support this criminal by continuing to provide him the lavish lifestyle he has come to live when so much of the movie going public pays so much in taxes that they can hardly afford the tickets and popcorn?

We have a huge national debt in this country, and the liberals want to soak the rich and middle class to try to get it balanced and paid. Well, Snipes is the richest of the rich, yet so many of these same liberals are supporting him for various reasons. The IRS went after Snipes with much more passive means than they do many tax payers who do not file and pay their taxes – with much less income.

The bottom line is: Snipes knew he owed taxes on the money. If he didn’t, he is the dumbest man in the country. Snipes knowingly did not file or pay his taxes. He should receive his just punishment. Period.

Note to Wesley Snipes: I hope your cell mates think you are pretty.

I posted something about this in a former post regarding scammers trying to steal your tax refunds, but the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) issues a new caution today regarding this, and other scams.

Most of these scams consist of e-mails or faxes requesting detailed personal information that appear to be from the IRS.

To keep it short and simple….

The IRS does not send unsolicited emails or faxes from taxpayers. If you get an email or a fax that appears to be from the IRS, it is not.

To determine what to do if you have received this type of information, follow the IRS’s guidelines here.

I do not know how many times I have gotten the annoying email from some one in Nigeria wanting me to help him and his family asking me to assist them in placing large sums of money (usually $50 million or more) into overseas bank accounts. I don’t know if I get more than the normal person because I am a CPA or if I get the same amount as everyone. Perhaps they think that I am more likely to assist them and that I may think of it as a professional engagement. Most likely, I am just part of a massive SPAM email list that they hit over and over again looking for suckers. Luckily, my new SPAM filtering system eliminates these completely. I have not recieved one since I got it installed. Previously, I was getting about eight to ten a week related to this one scam.

The FBI has had a warning against this scam on their website for a long time now. The problem is that I do not know anyone (other than a few other fraud professionals/investigators) who regularly surf out to the FBI’s website to see what scams they are notifying consumers of. We are left to other outlets to alert us to these scams. Obviously, the media isn’t doing a very good job. If these scams did not work for the perpetrators, they would not still be in existence after all these years.

I was pleased to see this morning that an Olympia, Washington woman was sentenced to two years in prison and five years of supervised release after pleading guilty to attempting to defraud U.S. citizens a Nigerian check scam. Edna Fiedler was not the Nigerian brain child of the scam. She was a U.S. citizen who replied to the email, and ultimately got sucked into it. The Nigerians would send her fake checks and money orders to cash. She would cash them and get to keep a more than fair percentage for herself, and then send the rest to the individual she was “helping” in Nigeria. When she was arrested, she had cashed $609,000 worth of phony checks and money orders. The FBI found an additional $1.1 million worth of checks and money orders that she was preparing to send out.

It looks like the FBI has at least made some headway into stopping this scam. Obvioiusly, the only thing that will stop it for good is if everyone is aware of it. Personally, I do not see why anyone would think these emails are real. Of course, we are in a money hungry society in which everyone wants a quick buck, but only a small percentage of the people are willing to put in the work to get it. Perhaps the success of this scam is more of a reflection of what many (not all) Americans have become than anything else.

Let me know your thoughts.