Fort Smith, Arkansas Businessman Pleads Guilty To Tax Fraud

Fayetteville, AR – Duane (DAK) Kees, United States Attorney for the Western District of Arkansas, announced today that Donald Tankersley, age 76, of Fort Smith, Arkansas, has pleaded guilty to an information on two counts of Tax Fraud.  The Honorable Timothy L. Brooks accepted the plea in the United States District Court in Fayetteville on September 19, 2019.

According to court records, Tankersley is the owner of the White Dairy Ice Cream Company, Inc. (WDIC).  WDIC also includes Tankersley Food Service, which supplies food to restaurants, schools, and government entities.  WDIC is a corporation located in the Western District of Arkansas.  IRS investigators discovered a fraudulent scheme in which Tankersley siphoned funds from WDIC by having checks created from WDIC accounts and made out to non-existent trucking companies.  Tankersley collected and deposited the checks into his personal bank accounts, or directed others to either deposit the checks into his personal bank accounts or cash the checks for his personal use.  In 2013, Tankersley falsified the corporate tax returns for WDIC by causing the checks to non-existent trucking companies to be listed as corporate expenses.  This reduced the corporate tax liability for WDIC and caused a tax loss for the 2013 WDIC corporate tax return.  Also in 2013, Donald Tankersley did not report the checks listed above as personal income, despite many of them being deposited into his personal bank accounts.  This false omission from his personal tax returns also caused a tax loss.  According to court records, Tankersley has agreed to pay restitution to the IRS for a total tax loss of $188,198.     

Tankersley’s sentence will be determined later by the court.  In this case, Tankersley faces a maximum sentence of 3 years in prison for each count.

The investigation was conducted by IRS Criminal Investigation.  First Assistant United States Attorney Clay Fowlkes is prosecuting the case for the United States.