Northridge Woman Sentenced for Tax Evasion

A Northridge woman who owned and operated three mortgage referral businesses was sentenced Monday to a year and a half in prison for tax evasion and ordered to pay restitution of almost $400,000 to the Internal Revenue Service.

Shelly Tammy Kim, 43, pleaded guilty last August to one count of filing a false tax return for the 2003 calendar year.

"She's someone who liked to go to Las Vegas," U.S. District Judge Gary A. Feess said before imposing the sentence, adding that Kim apparently has a gambling problem and used the money "to live a lavish lifestyle."

Kim owned and operated Best Funding Inc., CalState Lending Inc. and Pacifica Mortgage -- all companies that earned income by referring loans to various lenders from whom they received loan referral commissions, according to court papers.

Kim was required to report all of the income she received from those companies on the individual tax returns she filed for the years 2003 through 2005, but failed to do so, an IRS spokeswoman said.

Instead, Kim received payments by checks drawn on her business accounts that were disguised as business expenses, and failed to disclose her receipt and control of those payments to the person who prepared her tax return, according to the government.

Kim failed to report $469,000, $420,000 and $295,554, respectively, in income over the three-year period, resulting in a tax loss of $398,164, the IRS reported.

Kim's conduct, Feess said, was "deliberate, it was calculated and, I think, sophisticated."

-- City News Service