From Tax Scam Promoter to GSA Adviser — ProPublica

Even He swore To eliminate “Each dollar waste, fraud and abuse Throughout the federal budget and operations, “New Acting Administration General Service, Stephen Echica, has appointed a senior advisor, whose firm specialized in tax operations, which in the Senate Senate was released, and what the IRS called” IRS as “as” “as”abusive“And among”The worst of the worst tax scams“The advisor is fighting the tax agency in court over $ 4 billion in the prohibition of thousands of customers.

The GSA, a federal agency responsible for land management and property, will now take advice from Frank Shuler IV, 57-year-old co-founder and long-standing president of Ornstin-Schuler, real estate investment companies. Shuler’s firm has been years Among the most prolific promoters Taxation transactions known as “Syndic Services”.

Shuler and his colleagues exploit the tax deduction, created for rewarding landowners who refuse the rights to develop their areas, usually sacrificing these rights to non -profit land. When used as intended, environmental services can retain untouched land, sometimes as a park that can use the public and reward the land donor with charity payment.

But intermediaries, such as Shuler, have turned the tax provision into a very profitable business, packed servites that they were essentially negative tax deductions for purchase. After leaving the cheap part of the empty land, Shuler and others usually hired a private assessor, wishing to state that the property had a huge unused value of development – that it is suitable for becoming anything: from a gravel mine to a luxury resort – and it cost Many times its purchased price. They then sold rates in the donation of the service rich people, who claimed that wildly inflated tax deductions based on evaluation, reducing taxes twice as much as they have invested. PROPUBLICA first started the investigation Syndic Easement Business that cost the government tens of billions of tax revenueBack in 2017.

IRS, the Ministry of Justice and Congress have been fighting for years through public warnings, hundreds of checks, tax courts and criminal prosecution to stop this scheme. These efforts resisted $ 11 million in speakers and the creation of a trading group based in Washington, called Partnership for the preservation founded by Shuler. Fans of syndication pressed Congress to give up the IRS crackdown.

In 2020, the Senate Financing Committee released A. A two -party investigation report on transaction. (Shuler was one of six people to court on committee For providing information.) The report in which detail in detailing the practice of the ORSTEIN-SHIPRUMER describes the syndered easements as a “dollar machine” for wealthy taxpayers, saving two dollars for each dollar, “with the promoters that throw millions of dollars for Organization of transactions. ” Practice was finally stopped by law adopted at the end of 2022, but it remains on the IRS ‘ List “Dirty Ten” “Tax avoidance strategies”.

“This is the one who has earned their money by breaking US taxpayers, and who should not come wherever the power over the tax dollars,” commented Senator Ron Wider, Democrat Oregon, who helped observe the Senate’s investigation after As he was told about Shuler’s appointment. “He will fit right with the Trump administration.”

The exact role of Shuler in the government is unclear. GSA employee said he was present on a recent 15-minute video “arrival” Team DOGE ELON MUSK’S DOGE. Kavnan presented Shuler, who said little as “my colleague Frank”.

Shuler’s photos and contact information were also made last week in the agency’s internal catalog, shortly after his profile disappeared from the Ornstin-Schuler site. But it is unknown whether he is a paid state worker or volunteer associated with Dage Elon Musk’s efforts. Shuler and Matt Orstein did not respond to calls, messages and emails seeking comments. GSA and Ehikian did not respond to the e -mails sent to the agency’s press service.

In the past, Shuler described his tax operations as legal and well -purposeful. In an interview with Propublica 2017, he stated that his entry into the business of syndication of easements was the result of personal epiphan when his son compared the pavement building with the pollution. As Shuler described, “the importance of preserving the land for it and future generations has really pushed me to this point.… That’s why I am so passionate about preservation today.”

In 2019, Ornstin-Schuler abandoned a business with a syndical admission, citing “recent events and uncertainty related to the preservation and gift of property.” The firm appealed to other real estate and tax fields, including launching a new unit Buy and sell tax credits in Georgia. Schuler was reportedly earned by a loan as an executive producer on A movie in which Mira Sorvino has played the AI ​​security system at home. (Orstein, still CEO of Ornstin-Schuler, was also co-founded chain of dental offices and the car wash chain.)

But the legal war on taxation of the oral-shuler continues today. According to the recent IRS application, the firm has launched more than 100 tax court cases related to its transactions, challenging more than $ 4 billion in prohibited charitable deductions of about 2000 investors. Many things are still waiting. Ornstein-Schuler has made many years of effort to reach a global settlement with the IRS; Another filing includes August 2022 From one of its law firms, which claim that such an agreement will find out for tax collection of $ 1.5 billion and personally cost Shuler and his partner about $ 150 million in additional taxes, interest and fines.

The decision of the tax court, rendered last year, decided the first of the cases of Shuler to go to the trial, which has participated in the preservation of 4 607 hectares in rural Alabam since 2014. The promoters claimed that the potential for the production of sand and gravel justified only $ 187 million in charity. Investors’ advertising materials showed that they predicted $ 200,000 for every $ 100,000 invested. The decision, which resolved the 13 -related property -related cases, abandoned the IRS, getting rid of about $ 180 million from $ 187 million and imposing a 40% “gross assessment” by most prohibited sums. The judge found that the Schuler’s partnership demanded a $ 50,000 deduction per land, which was purchased less than a year earlier than $ 2200.

In his opinionAlbert Laber, Senior Judge in the US Tax Court, extremely noted how the ORNSStein School on the standard step of promising investors in the amount of tax savings for every 1 dollar they have invested. “When asked by court as he could place in advance the withdrawal of the investment from $ 4.389 to $ 1, before any estimates was conducted, Mr. They suggested, which they offered, which they offered, which they offered, “which they proposed, – wrote the judge’s values.

“We made a lot of money,” Shuler testified during the case. “Investors were going well. And we thought it was great that the land was stored.”

Ornstin-schuler is also one of the defendants in a federal law in Georgia filed by three investors. The lawsuit states that Ornstin-Schuler collaborated with lawyers, accountants, assessors and others to raise millions of payments through a “false scheme” that launched “mountain of improper representations and inaction” to promote unacceptable easements. Orstein School and other defendants filed a joint petition for dismissal, claiming that the risk of investment in the easement was completely disclosed, and they did not mislead anyone.

Ornstein-schuler also went to attack. In December 2023, he sued the IRS, saying that the agency did not respond to the request of the Law on Freedom of Information on the Agency’s documents. The firm complained that “the abuse of the IRS related to the orientation to maintain service operations”, which, he said, were part of “a well -advertised company”. Among the requested documents: “All communications records between IRS employees and media members”, including Propublica reporters Peter Elkend, reporters of the Wall Street Journal Richard Rubin and Forbes Peter Peter Reilly, regarding the conservation of easements. Rose Rosenstein, Deputy Prosecutor General of the United States during the first Trump administration, presents Orstein School in this case.