New England accountant admits filing false tax returns

Date: August 29, 2024

Contact: [email protected]

Vanessa Roberts Avery, United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut, and Harry T. Chavis, Jr., Special Agent in Charge of IRS Criminal Investigation in New England, announced that Mark Legowski, of Farmington, waived his right to be indicted and pleaded guilty today before U.S. District Judge Kari A. Dooley in Bridgeport to filing false tax returns.

According to court documents and statements made in court, from January 2015 through December 2017, Legowski was a self-employed accountant and tax return preparer doing business as Legowski & Company, Inc. ("LCI") in Farmington. Legowski prepared income tax returns for approximately 400 to 500 individual clients and approximately 50 to 60 businesses. For the 2015 through 2017 tax years, in order to reduce his personal income tax liability, Legowski willfully underreported LCI's gross receipts in LCI's computer bookkeeping system by excluding some customer payment checks. He then filed false personal income tax returns that failed to report a total of more than $1.4 million in business income, which resulted in a loss to the IRS of $499,289.

For example, on his 2017 income tax return, Legowski reported taxable income of $56,060 and a tax liability of $6,070 and failed to report an additional $496,808 in business income, which resulted in an income tax deficiency of $178,581.

Judge Dooley scheduled sentencing for November 25, at which time Legowski faces a maximum term of imprisonment of three years. Legowski also has agreed to cooperate with the IRS to pay $499,289 in back taxes, as well as penalties and interest.

Legowski is released on a $50,000 bond pending sentencing.

This investigation is being conducted by IRS Criminal Investigation (CI). The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Hal Chen.

CI is the criminal investigative arm of the IRS, responsible for conducting financial crime investigations, including tax fraud, narcotics trafficking, money-laundering, public corruption, healthcare fraud, identity theft and more. CI special agents are the only federal law enforcement agents with investigative jurisdiction over violations of the Internal Revenue Code, obtaining a more than a 90 percent federal conviction rate. The agency has 20 field offices located across the U.S. and 12 attaché posts abroad.