Tax Implications Of The College Admissions Scandal

CNBC, Taxes and Penalties May Await Wealthy Parents in College Admissions Scam:

Wealthy parents ensnared in a massive college admissions scheme may have another worry on the horizon: the IRS.

Two famous actresses and a group of executives are among the 50 people facing charges in a massive cheating conspiracy to help their children get into elite colleges, according to law enforcement officials.

The scheme allegedly involved parents paying William "Rick" Singer of Newport Beach, California, so that he could facilitate cheating on the SAT and ACT entrance exams, according to the 204-page affidavit.

These payments, which ran from $15,000 to $75,000 per test, were allegedly structured as donations to the Key Worldwide Foundation, a non-profit that Singer established as a charity, according to law enforcement officials.

Parents also allegedly paid Singer a purported $25 million to bribe coaches and college administrators to designate the children as athletic recruits, according to the complaint.

The parents also made these payments under the guise of charitable donations to the foundation, law enforcement officials allege.

"Many clients then filed personal tax returns that falsely reported the payment to the KWF as charitable donations," federal authorities said.

Under normal circumstances, charitable donations are deductible if you itemize on your income tax return.

However if those payments were fraudulent, the IRS could claw back those breaks and hit the "donors" with penalties, tax professors said.

"If what they were actually doing was not making charitable contributions but paying bribes, then the IRS should be able to question that and disallow the deductions," said Leandra Lederman, director of the tax program at the Indiana University Maurer School of Law.

After parents made payments to Key Worldwide Foundation, employees at the organization mailed letters thanking them for the contribution, federal authorities alleged.

"Your generosity will allow us to move forward with our plans to provide educational and self-enrichment programs to disadvantaged youth," the letter said.

The message also falsely said that "no goods or services were exchanged for the donations," according to the complaint.

This "quid pro quo" is one way the IRS can question the deductions, said Joshua Blank, professor of law at the University of California, Irvine School of Law.

"If you give a gift, but there's a quid pro quo that the money must be used to get your child into a certain college or pay some other type of bribe, then that's not what the tax law considers a gift," he

said.

"To get a tax deduction for making a gift to charity, you must give it out of 'detached and disinterested generosity,'" said Blank. "Paying a bribe is an incredibly interested act." ...

If the IRS can show that the parents intended to defraud the government by claiming these payments as charitable deductions, there could be a civil fraud penalty, Blank said. ... If the IRS can show that the parents intended to defraud the government by claiming these payments as charitable deductions, there could be a civil fraud penalty, Blank said. 

"With fraud, it's like a basketball game with no shot clock," said Blank. "You can shoot forever."

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• Sam Brunson (Loyla-Chicago), Key Worldwide Foundation and College Admissions