Florida man who makes $18K mistakenly gets $980K tax refund, buys Lexus

Eventually the IRS did catch up to him, but not before he stretched his his hustle to the max and dropped bags worth of ill-gotten tax money

Blue Telusma

Feb 15, 2019

A bold Florida resident has found himself in hot water with the Internal Revenue Service after he finessed his way into receiving $980,000 tax refund.

According to the NYDaily News, in 2016, Ramon Christopher Blanchett only made approximately $18,500 as a freelancer in Tampa. In February 2017 Blanchett did his own taxes, and submitted several W-2 forms.

One of his forms inexplicably showed he earned $17,098 with $1 million of federal income taxes withheld. As a result the IRS issued him a $980,000 refund, which Blanchett deposited into her personal account Sun Trust.

The bank flagged the account for fraud after Blanchett received his windfall, and decided to freeze the accounts, sending Blanchett a check to part ways. Undeterred he opened a new account at a different financial institution where according to the forfeiture complaint filed in U.S. District Court he, “falsely represented that the funds were from the estate of his deceased father.”

By the time the feds caught up with the 29-year-old, he’d spent $49,117 of the illegally obtained funds on a Lexus RC350 and split up the rest of the money across several accounts.

The IRS has confiscated the Lexus and the $919,251 Blanchett had left and is now seeking the remaining $809 they are owed which was the amount spent of auto insurance for the new car.

Surprisingly, the Tampa Bay Times. notes that despite the boldness of his actions, Blanchett has yet to be charged for fraud.

The IRS has seized a Lexus and $919,251 from Ramon Christopher Blanchett after it accused him of filing a tax return that falsely showed $1 million in federal income tax withholding.https://t.co/QwGAcW3RNH

— Business by Tampa Bay Times (@TBTimesBiz) February 14, 2019