• (Continued from last week)
The heavyweight bout is guaranteed to go the full distance of fifteen rounds without any prospects of a knockout, whether Technical Knockout (TKO) or a draw. A victor must emerge eventually. In one corner are Former Treasury Secretary and past President of Harvard University, Professor Larry Summers who has slagged off President Trump’s much-touted tax plan as more dishonest than any he has ever seen before. It is offering 4,000 extra dollars in each taxpayer’s pocket (or directly into the wallets of the American people).
Donald Trump’s photograph is superimposed and he triumphantly declares:
“So each household would take in $4,000 and they’ll go out and they’ll spend that money and that will be great for the economy.”
In the other corner is Kevin Hassett, the chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers.
READ ALSO: Donald Trump lost the elections weeks ago. Here are some dangerous things he has done since
For those who are intrigued by President Donald Trump’s beguiling keen interest in Africa, he has taken pains to explain:
“Africa is an enigma anchored on conflict and contradiction. It has the largest concentration of wealth – oil, diamonds, gold, water, sunshine etc. just to mention a few; yet it has the largest percentage of poor people in the world. America has a moral duty to intervene. Added to this is the security of America itself as Africa serves as fertile ground for recruits for ISIS; Boko Haram; Al-Sheebab and other terrorists.”
The Super Trump Towers which Donald wants to build on J.K. Randle land at Onikan, Lagos, Nigeria is an entirely separate issue. Ironically, President Donald Trump was genuinely shocked to learn while watching television on Air Force One (on his way back from what he described as his highly successful trip to Asia that Nigerians were being sold as slaves in Libya. This was not fake news!!
Even more damning was the following report which has gone viral:
“Biggest tax fraud in US history: Nigerian scammers steal $11 million from the IRS”.
In an email to the Associated Press, First Assistant U.S. Attorney for Oregon, Scott Erik Asphaug, said this is one of the largest tax fraud cases in the United States in which stolen personal identification information was used to defraud the IRS. Its scope is staggering.
According to the US Attorney’s office for Oregon, a Nigerian man, Michael Oluwasegun Kazeem, 24, has been sentenced to seven years in federal prison for his role in the bilking of over $11 million via an identity-theft scheme from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
Kazeem, who came to the United States on a student visa, has been sentenced in federal court in the southern Oregon town of Medford on Nov. 8 for conspiracy to commit mail fraud, aggravated identity theft and mail fraud. Kazeem has also been ordered by U.S. District Court Judge Ann Aiken to pay $4.3 million in restitution.
Last August, Kazeem’s brother, Emmanuel Kazeem, was convicted in Medford of mail and wire fraud, aggravated identity theft and conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud. The evidence was presented at his trial and showed Emmanuel Kazeem purchased over 91,000 taxpayer identities from a Vietnamese hacker.
READ ALSO: President Trump and crimes against humanity
Kazeem joined in 2013 to help his brother, who lived in Bowie, Maryland, and Nigeria. His brother’s sentencing is scheduled for March 22, 2018.
In a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s office, it was determined by an IRS criminal investigation that the co-conspirators obtained personal identifying information of more than 259,000 people, and used it to acquire over 19,500 electronic filing PINs from the IRS.
The co-conspirators obtained and used pre-paid debit cards with the stolen identities to receive direct electronic tax refund deposits. They eventually filed over 10,000 fraudulent federal tax returns, attempting to obtain over $91 million in refunds, with actual losses amounting to over $11 million.
Refunds were withdrawn from the debit cards and at least 2,000 wire transfers totalling over $2.1 million were sent to Nigeria.
In an email to the Associated Press, First Assistant U.S. Attorney for Oregon Scott Erik Asphaug said this is one of the largest tax fraud cases in the United States in which stolen personal identification information was used to defraud the IRS. Its scope is staggering.
Authorities were alerted to the case when a Medford victim told the IRS in May 2013 that false federal and Oregon state tax returns were filed electronically using her and her husband’s names.
The returns included personally identifiable information, including their social security numbers and dates of birth. The federal refund was deposited into an account via a prepaid debit card in a suburb of Chicago while the state refund was directed to a bank account in Texas.
Back in 2014, the co-conspirators also were able to gain access to the IRS “Get Transcript” system and obtained sensitive taxpayer information to file additional fraudulent returns. Because of these and other security breaches, the IRS discontinued the “Get Transcript” program nationwide in 2015, the U.S. Attorney’s office said in a statement.
A newspaper in Medford, The Mail Tribune, reported that tax returns were filed using 13,203 accounts stolen from CICS Employment Services, a company based in Lincoln City, Oregon that performs pre-employment background checks.
The owner of CICS said he lost $420,000 worth of business, and handled hundreds of calls from distressed victims, many with limited means, the newspaper reported.
No taxpayers suffered monetarily as a result of the crimes but were caused a plethora of issues.
“I’m deeply and emotionally sorry for the trouble I caused. What I did was wrong,” Kazeem said in court.
He is to be deported back to Nigeria after completing his sentence.
Other reports that were waiting for President Trump when he arrived back at the White House (and which he eagerly shared with the retired partners of KPMG who are still awaiting their gratuity and pension) were the following:
J.K. Randle
