Source: United States Attorneys General
Headline: Former CPA Sentenced for Obstructing the IRS
St. Louis, MO – Mark A. Beckham was sentenced today to 36 months in prison for obstructing the administration of the internal revenue laws.
Beckham, 62, St. Charles County, was found guilty in September 2017 of one felony count of attempting to interfere with the administration of the internal revenue laws. The six-day trial was held before United States District Judge Ronnie L. White.
Beckham was a former CPA, whose license to practice as a CPA was revoked following his federal mail fraud conviction in 2006.
The evidence at trial showed that Beckham prepared 2009 and 2010 individual and corporate federal income tax returns for a client. These returns were subsequently audited by the IRS. During this audit, Beckham provided his client’s dayplanner calendar to the IRS. This dayplanner calendar had been altered to reflect that Beckham’s client worked for a company that had large tax losses, when, in fact, Beckham’s client had not worked for this company. This dayplanner calendar was given to the IRS to support deductions for non-passive losses on the tax returns that Beckham prepared for his client.
This case was investigated by IRS-Criminal Investigation. Assistant United States Attorneys Steven Muchnick and Reginald Harris are handling the case for the U.S. Attorney’s Office.