A Milwaukee man has entered a guilty plea to charges of helping to draw up counterfeit tax returns. A statement from the office of Brad D. Schimel, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, confirmed. On January 6, Cameron Summers, implicated in the fabrication of over 400 false tax filings, stood before U.S. District Judge Brett Ludwig and admitted to his involvement in boosting illegitimate tax refund claims for clients between 2020 and 2022.
Summers, who began working at a tax preparation service in the city in 2018, manipulated returns with fictitious business expenses and various credits, including Sick and Family Leave as well as Fuel and Educational Tax Credits. The fraudulent activities have been pinpointed to have caused a loss exceeding $1.1 million to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). In a reported turn of events, Summers, at an interview with the IRS, Criminal Investigation Division, declared that he did "everything he could to get a big refund," including the utilization of "whatever numbers were available" and maximizing credits on the returns.
The manipulation of tax filings by Summers included his name, preparer tax identification number, and the name of the business he represented. According to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, this was a repeated offense, as evidenced by notations made by Summers himself that acknowledged he had "boosted" the refund amounts on some of the returns.
Following his guilty plea, Cameron Summers now faces the possibility of serving up to three years in prison and being fined up to $250,000 for each of the counts. His sentencing has been scheduled on May 5, at 9:00 a.m. by Judge Ludwig, who will also determine any terms of supervised release post-imprisonment. With the case being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney John P. Scully, the IRS, Criminal Investigation Division, stands as the investigating authority behind the flagging and unraveling of Summers' criminal dealings.
