A local tax return preparer has been arrested in Houston, Texas, on new charges of illegally preparing 39 false tax returns. U.S. Attorney Kenneth Magidson, along with D. Richard Goss, special agent in charge of Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI), announced the charges yesterday.
Cedric Keith Oliphant, a former tax preparer, was sentenced to 33 months in prison after pleading guilty in 2013 to filing a false tax return. He was released from prison on August 26, 2016, and arrested on the new charges today.
Oliphant had been previously convicted of preparing dozens of false 2006-08 client tax returns as part of his business – Oliphant Tax Services. He had been permitted to remain on bond during that time under a condition that he have no involvement in the preparation of tax returns other than his own. However, according to the new indictment, Oliphant continued to claim the same false deductions for unsuspecting clients while awaiting sentencing on the previous case.
As part of the scheme, the indictment alleges he changed the name of his business to “Tax Services” to allegedly make it appear that he had stopped preparing client tax returns and that someone else was the owner of his tax preparation business. Oliphant allegedly attributed the fees to the nominal owner of his tax office but manipulated those tax returns to make it appear that the tax office had produced almost no taxable income.
The indictment also alleges that Oliphant established a series of bank accounts in the names of others – including minors with custodians other than himself – so the fees could first be deposited to accounts in the names of the nominal owner of his tax office and others. He then allegedly transferred those fees through these intermediate accounts to accounts in his own name. This scheme enabled Oliphant to conceal his personal use of the fees generated by the business during the course of the prosecution on the first case, according to the charges.
Oliphant’s business allegedly generated $2 million in fees and a total loss to the IRS of another $400,000 or more as charged in the new indictment. As part of his plea agreement in the earlier case, the losses from those false tax returns exceeded $325,000.
If convicted, Oliphant faces another three years in federal prison and a possible $250,000 fine on each count of conviction.
Related Federal Cases
- Peter Zavell, Filed False Tax Return, Florence FL, 2000 · Florida
- Racyna Antoinette Henry, Aiding and Assisting in Preparation of Fraudulent Federal Tax Returns, Texas 2013 · Texas
- Peter Mwedziwendira, Filing False Personal Tax Returns, Texas 2017 · Texas
- Kevin Dalcourt, Making a False Tax Return, Louisiana 2017 · Louisiana
- Dianne Mowatt, Tax Return Preparation and Filing Fraud, Florida 2014 · Florida
Key Facts
- State: Texas
- Category: White Collar Crime
- Source: DOJ Press Release â†â€â€
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