An Austin man could be facing a hard time after a federal grand jury slapped him with tax fraud charges, accusing him of fudging his income from hefty bitcoin sales to the IRS, the U.S. Justice Department said. Frank Richard Ahlgren III, got caught in Uncle Sam's crosshairs for allegedly hiding over $4 million in cryptocurrency gains and fiddling with his tax forms to make it look like he made less, according to an Austin American Statesman report.
The DOJ claims the crypto-gains were slyly omitted from Ahlgren's tax filings for 2017 when he reported an inflated initial purchase price to minimize his apparent capital gains and skew his real take-home, per a statement by the U.S. Department of Justice, he then allegedly flipped the unreported cash into a plush $3.7 million pad, and the feds ain't happy about it, the Justice Department indictment was detailed by a KXAN article.
"All taxpayers are required to report any sale proceeds and gains or losses from the sale of cryptocurrency, such as bitcoin, on a tax return," the DOJ huffed in a release, as cited in KXAN news, making it clear that crypto or no crypto, the tax man cometh. Ahlgren also faces accusations of "structuring" – the art of depositing cash in increments just shy of $10,000 to elude the eagle eyes of bankers and the law who have to report such chubby transactions.
Now, if the jury decides to throw the book at him, Ahlgren could be staring down the scary barrel of a prison sentence that could max out at five years for each count of structuring, while every false return count could tag on three extra years behind bars, a fate far from the high-rolling crypto life, the stark numbers were outlined in KXAN report.
