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Georgia attorney sentenced to 16 months for role in $1.3B tax fraud scheme

The Brief Vi Bui, a Georgia attorney, was sentenced to 16 months in prison for obstructing the IRS in a tax fraud scheme involving over $1.3 billion in fraudulent deductions. The scheme involved creating partnerships to claim inflated tax deductions through fraudulent appraisals of conservation easements, benefiting wealthy clients. Bui was ordered to pay $8.25 million in restitution and serve one year of supervised release following his prison sentence. ATLANTA - A Georgia attorney was sentenced Wednesday to 16 months in prison for obstructing the IRS in connection with a sprawling tax fraud scheme involving more than $1.3 billion in fraudulent deductions from abusive syndicated conservation easement shelters. What we know Vi Bui, an attorney and partner at the Atlanta-based firm Sinnott & Co., played a key role in the operation, which spanned from at least 2012 through May 2020, according to court records. Federal prosecutors say Bui and others organized, marketed, and sold illegal tax shelters designed to exploit conservation easement deductions. The scheme involved creating partnerships that acquired land or companies holding land. These partnerships would then donate conservation easements or the land itself to claim inflated charitable contribution tax deductions based on fraudulent appraisals. Wealthy clients who purchased units in the partnerships used those inflated deductions to reduce their taxes—often joining the shelters after the donation date and after the relevant tax year had ended. The backstory To make the transactions appear legitimate, prosecutors said Bui and his co-conspirators—including Jack Fisher and James Sinnott, who were sentenced earlier this year to 25 and 23 years in prison, respectively—backdated documents and fabricated records, including subscription agreements and checks. They also staged sham votes and produced falsified paperwork to disguise the true nature of the transactions. In one 2018 undercover operation, Bui created false documents for a 2014 transaction in an attempt to make it seem as though the paperwork had been executed before the donation and before the filing of that year's tax returns. Bui personally profited from the scheme and used the fraudulent deductions to avoid paying his own taxes, filing false personal returns from 2013 to 2018. What's next Along with his prison sentence, Chief U.S. District Judge Timothy C. Batten Sr. of the Northern District of Georgia ordered Bui to pay $8.25 million in restitution to the IRS and serve one year of supervised release. The Source The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Georgia provided the details and image for this article.