A Port St. Lucie, Fla., tax preparer has been sent down for a scheme to file false federal income tax returns using stolen identity information.
Ernst Pierre, owner and operator of Tax Max, was sentenced to 51 months in federal prison for wire fraud and aggravated identity theft, the Justice Department and Internal Revenue Service – Criminal Investigation announced.
The Justice Department said Pierre obtained the names and Social Security numbers of relatives of clients for whom he had prepared federal income tax returns and then fraudulently used those names and Social Security numbers as “dependents” on other client tax returns and on his own tax return.
Pierre used these dependents to fraudulently inflate tax refunds, raking in a total of $266,000 in ill-gotten gains, according to the indictment and Pierre’s admissions as part of his guilty plea.
The scam ran from October 2009 through May 2011, with Pierre filing false tax returns for clients of Tax Max.
The Justice Department thanked special agents of IRS-CI for their work on the case, as well as Tax Division Trial Attorneys Justin K. Gelfand and Thomas J. Krepp, who prosecuted the case.
Kathryn Keneally, Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department’s Tax Division, praised the efforts of the agents and prosecutors.
Pierre was ordered to pay the full amount of restitution to the IRS, a sum of $266,000, in addition to his prison sentence.
The case serves as a reminder that tax preparers have a responsibility to uphold the law and protect their clients’ sensitive information.
The Justice Department will continue to pursue those who engage in tax refund fraud schemes, and we will bring them to justice, the department said in a statement.
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