Two Harvey women are headed to federal prison after masterminding a years-long tax fraud scheme that bled the IRS of over $180,000. Joyce D. Gaines, 63, and her daughter Racquel Walker, 32, admitted to cooking the books for clients who never qualified for the refunds they claimed — all while pocketing fees for their criminal services.
U.S. District Judge Sarah S. Vance handed down the sentences today: 30 months behind bars for Gaines, followed by three years of supervised release. Walker received 18 months in prison and one year of supervision. Both were ordered to pay joint restitution of $180,408.00 to the Internal Revenue Service — the total loss tied to their fraudulent filings.
The pair ran Tax Town, a storefront operation in Gretna, Louisiana, from January 2011 through December 2014. Marketed as a legitimate tax prep service, it quickly became a factory for falsified returns. Gaines and Walker inflated deductions, invented losses, and fabricated income figures to inflate refunds for clients who had no legal claim to them.
Court documents lay bare the mechanics of the scam: false education credits, phony business expenses, and invented dependents padded returns across dozens of filings. The scheme didn’t just cheat the system — it exploited it, using IRS loopholes and public trust to line their own pockets while shifting the burden to honest taxpayers.
The case was investigated by IRS-Criminal Investigation, the federal agency tasked with rooting out financial fraud. U.S. Attorney Duane A. Evans credited their relentless work in dismantling the operation, calling it a clear-cut case of abuse masked as service. “This wasn’t poor financial advice — it was deliberate, calculated fraud,” Evans stated.
Assistant United States Attorney Loan “Mimi” Nguyen prosecuted the case. With sentencing complete, Gaines and Walker now face the consequences of turning a neighborhood tax shop into a front for federal crime — where the only real return was a prison cell.
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Key Facts
- State: Louisiana
- Agency: DOJ USAO
- Category: Fraud & Financial Crimes
- Source: Official Source ↗
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