MINNEAPOLIS – An economics professor at the University of Minnesota failed to pay her income taxes every year dating back to 2003 reports KSTP.
Beth Allen, 64, makes more than $160,000 annually as a professor at UMN, reports KSTP. The statute of limitations for tax crimes means that she will only be charged for failure to pay taxes on her income from 2010 to 2015, and not for the remaining seven years.
In the time where she avoided the tax man she had been living large, reports the Star Tribune. Allen spent thousands on travel, restaurants, liquor and wineries according to credit card statements.
Police executed search warrants in her residence, a hotel room at the Residence Inn, and her UMN office. They found a 2013 Mercedes-Benz, 19 letters from the Minnesota Department of Revenue, and 60 letters from the IRS and Philadelphia Department of Revenue.
KSTP reports Allen gave an interview in November in which she said she needed to pay her taxes and admitted she was behind on filings. She claimed not to have received the letters police found still in her possession.
State withholdings of $6,000 annually were not nearly enough to cover her tax bill reports the Star Tribune. Charges also say she exploited personal allowances by claiming ten withholdings and receiving taxable distributions from her pension each year.
In all, Allen faces 12 felony and gross misdemeanor charges just from the 2010 to 2015 period. Also, just in that same time period, she is estimated to owe the state more than $50,000 in outstanding taxes, penalties, and interest, reports the Star Tribune.
This is the second UMN professor indicted in recent weeks, following Edward Adam’s indictment for 14 counts of fraud totaling millions of dollars.
