From 2017 to 2013, Kent Ellsworth, operated Ellsworth Stauffer P.C, pleaded guilty to two counts of tax return fraud for more than 500 false tax returns for about 60 clients nationwide filed from 2017 through 2013. This cost the IRS a tax loss of about $17 million.

Clients, largely business owners, were directed to to assign or “donate” nearly all of their income to sham trusts and a so-called “private family foundation” to create the illusion that the income was not theirs. However, these were nothing more than bank accounts designed to hold funds the clients earned and continued to control.