Prison sentence for Sandy man in $1.5M tax fraud case

Prison sentence for Sandy man in $1.5M tax fraud case

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SALT LAKE CITY — A Sandy man was sentenced to prison for two years in Salt Lake City's U.S. District Court on Wednesday for tax crimes totaling $1.5 million.

Paul Ben Zaccardi pleaded guilty to filing $1.5 million in false claims for tax refunds, tax evasion, and filing fictitious financial obligations.

Zaccardi began the tax fraud schemes in April 2004 and had filed five false claims for income tax refunds since then, according to court documents.

Some of Zaccardi's schemes for tax evasion included depositing business receipts into his wife's bank account and transferring title to his home so his residence would become a nominee entry known as Saved By Grace Christian Fellowship.

Zaccardi also created three fictitious financial obligations with federal institutions from June 2008 to October 2011 as an attempt to receive money from the government to pay for his federal income tax liabilities, according to the superseding indictment. The sum of the obligations totalled to $605 million and were filed with the IRS, U.S. Department of the Treasury and the U.S. District Court of the District of Utah.

As part of his sentence, Zaccardi must pay restitution to the IRS and serve a four-year term of supervised release after his time in prison.


Cassidy Hansen is currently studying both Political Science and Communications at Brigham Young University, while working as an intern at the Deseret News. Contact her at chansen@deseretnews.com

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