More than eight years after a judge ordered his Instant Tax Service closed, founder Fessum Ogbazion, of Cincinnati has been sentenced to prison. Ogbazion must serve one year and one day for tax fraud charges and repay the government $933,708.
Between 2006 and $2011, ITS, based in Dayton, Ohio, collected more than $70 million in fees. In November 2013, a federal shut down ITS and barred Ogbazion from the tax preparation busines for widespread fraud and deception.
For example, the chain advertised tax refund anticipation loans through an independent third-party lender, even though it had no agreement with a lender. ITS failed to pay $1.3 million in payroll taxes due from ITS and another firm during four tax quarters in 2009 and 2010 with Ogbazion hiding assets and lying to an IRS revenue officer.
Ogbazion was convicted by a federal jury on June 6, 2017, of tax evasion, willful failure to withhold and pay over employment taxes, wire fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and bank fraud. A court later dismissed five counts of wire fraud.
Bob Scott has provided information to the tax and accounting community since 1991, first as technology editor of Accounting Today, and from 1997 through 2009 as editor of its sister publication, Accounting Technology. He is known throughout the industry for his depth of knowledge and for his high journalistic standards. Scott has made frequent appearances as a speaker, moderator and panelist and events serving tax and accounting professionals. He has a strong background in computer journalism as an editor with two former trade publications, Computer+Software News and MIS Week and spent several years with weekly and daily newspapers in Morris County New Jersey prior to that. A graduate of Indiana University with a degree in journalism, Bob is a native of Madison, Ind