PROVIDENCE – A Scituate businessman, who prosecutors say claimed he was not a United States citizen on his tax forms and that his earnings were not taxable, pleaded guilty to tax evasion for not paying a total of $428,745 in income taxes between 2005 and 2016.
Billie R. Schofield, 63, admitted Monday before U.S. District Court Chief Judge William E. Smith that he took numerous steps to avoid paying federal income taxes, including submitting fraudulent checks to the Internal Revenue Service totaling $109,000 between 2005 and 2009.
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The government also accused Schofield of evading taxes by representing he wasn’t a U.S. citizen, by instructing a corporation in which he held a minor interest not to compensate him, filing false tax returns, concealing levies from businesses that owed him compensation and mailing false documents to the IRS in order to obstruct the assessment and collection of taxes.
A news release from Rhode Island’s U.S. Attorney Aaron L. Weisman alleged Schofield created a company, Sundown Services, with an Alaskan address in 2013. Over the next few years, prosecutors said, Schofield asked that money owed to him be paid to Sundown Services to conceal his income.
The IRS said it determined that Schofield owes federal income tax of $201,310 from between 2005 and 2009. He also didn’t file returns between 2010 and 2016, a time period in which he earned $731,481 from business partnerships, commissions from a Canadian fishing company and proceeds from the cultivation and sale of marijuana, the government said. Schofield owes $227,435 in federal income tax for the years he didn’t file returns.
Schofield is scheduled to be sentenced on Sept. 13. He faces up to five years in prison, a fine of $250,000 and three years of supervised release.
The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Sandra R. Hebert and Tax Division Trial Attorney Christopher P. O’Donnell.
William Hamilton is PBN staff writer and special projects editor. You can follow him on Twitter @waham or email him at hamilton@pbn.com.
