A Texas man has been slammed with a 41-month stint behind bars for skirting more than $1 million in taxes on dough he raked in while working overseas, authorities said. The schemer, identified as Peter Joseph Tignini of Cypress, Texas, failed to report a hefty $4.75 million in income he earned from 2013 to 2018 while working in the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, according to court documents cited by the Justice Department.
Parading as a modest earner, Tignini filed counterfeit tax returns claiming he made only about $100,000 annually, skirting right around the threshold U.S. citizens abroad can exclude from Uncle Sam's clutch, as per the feds. He didn't even bother to file a return for 2018, culminating in a tax loss to the IRS of a whopping $1,169,348. Tignini's sham crumbled following an interview with federal law enforcement, when he tried to deceitfully edit his employment contract and payroll documents, aiming to shake off the blame onto his former employer.
The justice hammer dropped further when the duplicitous Tignini provided those doctored papers to his attorneys, causing them to unwittingly hand over the phony documents to the IRS and the Tax Division of the Justice Department. When investigators started nosing around, the desperate tax dodger tried to permanently delete the evidence of his fraud from his account.
Judge George C. Hanks, dishing out the punishment in U.S. District Court, didn't just hand Tignini a cell to cool his heels in but also tacked on a three-year supervised release. He's also got to cough up the full amount he owes in restitution to America's pocket, totaling $1,169,348.60, according to the Justice Department announcement.
The case was rooted out by IRS Criminal Investigation and brought to court by Senior Litigation Counsel Sean Beaty and Trial Attorney Brian Flanagan of the Tax Division, with a little assist from Assistant U.S. Attorney Adam Goldman for the Southern District of Texas.
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