18-03-2025
St. Louis woman allegedly defrauds IRS of $177K in tax refunds
ST. LOUIS — A St. Louis woman turned herself in on Monday after she was accused of fraudulently obtaining $177,000 in tax refunds from the government.
According to the U.S. Attorney's Office of the Eastern District of Missouri, Ayana Brown, 33, filed two fraudulent employment tax returns on Dec. 22, 2022, on behalf of Yaya Flowtiques LLC.
Brown allegedly claimed the company had five employees when the company had no employees, and she still filed two tax returns stating the employees had been paid $322,389 over the course of two quarters.
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The indictment said Brown claimed credits under the Employee Retention Tax Credit programs that produced two U.S. Treasury checks totaling $177,000 in refunds and were mailed to Brown.
The U.S. Attorney's Office said the ERC program was designed to help businesses retain employees during the pandemic. Businesses typically qualified for the program if they were shut down by government order, had a 50% decline in receipts, qualified as a recovery startup business, and had paid qualified wages to employees.
Brown was indicted on February 20 on two felony counts of theft of government property. On Monday, Brown turned herself in and pleaded not guilty.
Each theft of government property charge is punishable by up to 10 years in prison, a $250,000 fine, or both.
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