Garbage company co-owner going to prison for tax fraud

A Washington County woman who ripped off the IRS for four years by hiding income from her and her husband’s garbage collection company is headed to federal prison for half a year.

U.S. District Judge Marilyn Horan on Tuesday imposed six months behind bars on Tina Beck and a year of probation after that, with the first six months on home detention.

She also has to pay restitution to the IRS of $252,034.

Beck had pleaded guilty to filing false tax returns in connection with hiding nearly $1 million in receipts from the garbage company, Beck’s Refuse Service, over a four-year span.

Her lawyer, Samir Sarna, argued that her scheme was not sophisticated and didn’t involve money laundering or other complex frauds often seen in federal tax crime cases.

“This was a straight tax scheme,” he said in asking for probation and no jail.

Mr. Sarna said she is a person of good character who has already taken steps to pay restitution.

The prosecutor, Carolyn Bloch, disagreed that the scheme was not sophisticated. She said

Beck’s fraud went on for years. In addition, she didn’t take any action to correct the problem until the criminal investigation branch of the IRS confronted her. Ms. Bloch also noted that Beck, who ran the business with her husband, told her residential customers to pay bills in cash instead of checks because she wanted to duck taxes.

“This is a significant tax case,” Ms. Bloch said. “There was a lot of planning involved.” The judge agreed.

“The intent here,” she said, “was to prevent taxation of income.”

Judge Horan said Beck deserves some prison time for that, although the judge didn’t give her as much as she could have under sentencing guidelines.

Beck said little except to apologize to the government and promise to pay what she owes.

“I’m embarrassed for my family that they’ve had to be put through this,” she said.

Beck, of West Alexander, was indicted last year for filing false returns from 2015 through 2018.

For 2016, she reported business receipts of $285,867 for the 2015 tax year. But the real receipts were a lot higher.

She did the same for the other years and in total underreported about $986,000.