A Boone County man was sentenced in federal court Tuesday to more than eight years in prison after he was found guilty of multiple tax fraud charges, including using multiple identities to file fake claims.
Owen Wheeler, 37, was sentenced in Fayetteville to 100 months in prison after he plead guilty in June to filing false claims for tax refunds, stealing federal tax refund money and aggravated identity theft, according to a statement from the U.S. attorney’s office for the Western District of Arkansas.
Between September 2011 and May 2012, federal authorities discovered Wheeler had been using the tax-preparation software TurboTax to file fraudulent claims with various other individual’s identities, the news release states. Wheeler also had opened a bank account in another person’s name to deposit checks and stole money using streamlined methods designed by the Internal Revenue Service to help taxpayers get their returns faster.
In total, Wheeler defrauded the United States Treasury out of more than $132,000, according to the release. He is ordered to pay back $132,411.49 and will be under three years of supervised release when he leaves prison.