Former Ga. county tax commissioner pleads guilty to not reporting $100K of earnings to IRS

Mary Royse Ginther
·2 min read

A former long-time county tax commissioner pleaded guilty to not reporting earnings from her work for four cities on her tax return.

According to court records, 57-year-old Tabetha DuPriest pleaded guilty to one count of making and subscribing to a false tax return.

DuPriest served as Worth County Commissioner since 2001 and as President of the Georgia Association of Tax Officials from 2019 to 2021.

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In her role as tax commissioner, officials said she oversaw the collection of motor vehicle taxes and property taxes for the cities of Sylvester, Poulan, Warwick and Sumner. Court documents revealed that she earned $80,000 a year for that work and received her Form W-2 from the Worth County Board of Commissioners.

In addition to her salary, officials said each city separately contracted DuPriest to collect city taxes and was compensated for her work.

According to investigators, DuPriest did not declare any additional income she received from her independent contracts with the four cities in Worth County on her federal tax returns since she became the tax commissioner.

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Officials said that DuPriest began declaring the additional income after she was interviewed by Federal Bureau of Investigation agents in 2022. During her interview, officials said DuPriest first claimed she reported the extra revenue on her tax returns, but in another interview, officials said she admitted to not reporting it.

According to the investigation, DuPrest received $99,293.65 from the four cities between 2016 and 2021 and did not report it on her tax returns.

Officials added that she was responsible for causing the Internal Revenue Service at least a $27,924.22 tax loss and must now pay $22,482.22 in restitution.

“There is no excuse for a long-time Tax Commissioner to fail to report earnings on personal income taxes, just like other citizens must do,” said U.S. Attorney Peter D. Leary. “These kinds of schemes undermine the public’s trust and simply won’t be tolerated by our office or our law enforcement partners.”

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