Aiding and Assisting in the Preparation and Presentation of False and Fraudulent Tax Returns Lands Louisiana Tax Preparer in Federal Prison and Ordered to Pay Restitution
Aiding and Assisting in the Preparation and Presentation of False and Fraudulent Tax Returns Lands Louisiana Tax Preparer in Federal Prison and Ordered to Pay Restitution
Louisiana – Aiding and assisting in the preparation and presentation of false and fraudulent tax returns has landed a Louisiana tax preparer in federal prison and ordered to pay restitution.
On March 23, 2023, United States Attorney Ronald C. Gathe, Jr. announced that Chief Judge Shelly D. Dick sentenced Bridget Rogers White, age 48, of Baker, Louisiana, to 24 months in federal prison following her convictions for aiding and assisting in the preparation and presentation of false and fraudulent tax returns. The Court further sentenced White to serve one year of supervised release following her term of imprisonment and ordered her to pay restitution in the amount of $149,933.
According to admissions made as part of her guilty plea, White ran an income tax preparation business out of her Baker home, dubbed “Bridget Stop & Go Tax Services” or “Bridgett’s Tax Service.” White filed tax returns for money through her firm but did not disclose herself as the paid preparer on the returns.
White prepared and submitted to the IRS many false and fraudulent U.S. Individual Income Tax Returns, known as Forms 1040, on behalf of herself and other taxpayer-clients from January 2015 until at least June 2018. She routinely included a false Schedule C, reporting a profit or loss from a fictitious business, and a false Form 8863, reporting fictitious education expenses in order to claim an education credit known as the American Opportunity Credit, among other false items, in the Forms 1040 and attachments thereto. White inserted extra fake items on certain returns, such as phony itemized deductions on a Schedule A or false dependents.
The basic consequence of such misleading information for each of her taxpayer-clients was to minimize the client’s tax due and intentionally inflate or enhance the amount of the client’s tax refund claimed.
During this inquiry, the IRS discovered 31 phony Forms 1040 that White created and submitted on behalf of 13 individual taxpayer-clients from 2014 to 2017. White’s actions alone resulted in a $149,993 loss as a result of those 31 false and fraudulent returns. For the purposes of punishment, White also agreed that the total tax loss attributable to her fraudulent behavior exceeded $550,000.
U.S. Attorney Gathe stated, “Fraudulent tax preparers cheat the government and honest taxpayers and will be dealt with accordingly. I want to thank my prosecutors and the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigators for their hard work on this case. “
“Assisting taxpayers prepare accurate tax returns is the entrusted responsibility of tax practitioners,” said James E. Dorsey, Special Agent in Charge, IRS Criminal Investigation, Atlanta Field Office. “White failed to live up to that responsibility by preparing false returns for herself and others. Today’s sentencing sends a message that IRS Criminal Investigation will continue investigating and recommending prosecution of return preparers who knowingly commit tax fraud.”
The Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation Division investigated the case, which was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Caroline Gardner.
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