Tami Mae May, Obstruction of Due Administration of Internal Revenue Laws, Minnesota 2015

Tax cheat Tami Mae May, 56, has been sent to the slammer for her role in failing to pay federal taxes for over seven years. The Anoka, Minn. resident was sentenced to two years in federal prison for obstruction of due administration of Internal Revenue laws.

May pleaded guilty on June 9, 2014, to one count of obstruction of due administration of Internal Revenue laws. She was sentenced on August 4, 2015, before Senior Judge David S. Doty in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis, Minn.

According to court documents, May failed to file any income tax returns for her excavating business from 1998 through 2004, despite earning substantial income during that time. When notified by the IRS in April 2005 that the business owed tax debt, penalties and interest, May embarked on an eight-year campaign of frivolous filings to obstruct the administration of Internal Revenue laws.

May filed a host of fake documents with the IRS, including a “zero income” tax return, Forms 1099-OID falsely claiming that her husband had made payments to various IRS Revenue Officers, falsely claiming that the Mays or their business had received “original issue discounts” and had “federal tax withheld” by various banks and credit card companies, and forms claiming that the Mays were not United States Citizens, but instead were permanent residents of the “Kingdom of Heaven.”

May also made nonsensical tax-defier-scheme-related statements to the IRS, including that her social security number was her “corporate fiction’s” social security number, that her family’s business was a foreign trust of which she was the trustee, and that there is no such thing as money.

The case is the result of an investigation conducted by the Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigations. Assistant U.S. Attorney Kimberly A. Svendsen prosecuted the case.

May was also ordered to pay $192,495 in restitution. A conviction for obstruction of due administration of Internal Revenue laws carries a maximum penalty of three years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

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