A Great Falls gun store owner Montanans heard about primarily after most of the state’s congressional delegation raised concerns about an IRS raid on his business has now been indicted on tax fraud.
On Friday the U.S. District Attorney for Montana announced that Tom VanHoose, the owner of a Great Falls gun shop, has been indicted on five counts of tax fraud. According to federal prosecutors, VanHoose owes the IRS almost $500,000.
“The indictment alleges VanHoose, by his own claims, skimmed cash from his firearms business and did not report 20% of his gross receipts to the IRS, which resulted in a substantial underpayment of income taxes to the United States,” U.S. Attorney Jesse Laslovich said in a press release Friday. “After a thorough investigation conducted by the IRS, we allege VanHoose’s own statements to an undercover agent were accurate, which is why is charged with multiple counts of submitting a false federal tax return.”
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Reached by phone at his shop Friday, VanHoose declined to comment beyond saying the undercover agent was from Chicago.
“All I can tell ya, a guy named Jim Carey from Chicago is the one who’s making the statements against me,” he said.
VanHoose is set to enter a plea in U.S. District Court in Great Falls on Sept. 10. VanHoose declined to say whether he’d plead guilty or not guilty. Last year he told The Billings Gazette he had been audited by the state revenue department but didn’t think at the time it was connected to the raid. Instead, he believed other federal agencies had been watching his business, which sells semiautomatic firearms, for years leading up to the IRS visit.
Montana’s Republican U.S. Sen Steve Daines likewise sent a letter to Werfel on June 21, 2023, a week after the raid in Great Falls, with several questions such as asking for clarification on the scope of the search warrant and what agencies intended to do with the ATF Form 4473s.
A Daines spokesperson on Friday said he was concerned with the lack of transparency and answers from the IRS considering an unknown number of Montanans’ personally identifiable information that may have been swept up in the investigation. The spokesperson added Daines trusts the judicial process and will respect the outcome of the case.
If convicted on all charges, VanHoose could be sentenced to a maximum three years in prison, $250,000 fine and five years of supervised release.
