Three years in prison for tax preparer who cost IRS $2.8 million with false returns
A Rocky Mount tax preparer who filed false returns and cost the government nearly $3 million will serve three years in prison.
U.S. District Court Judge Louise Flanagan sentenced Moses Whitaker, 44, on Tuesday and ordered him to pay $167,285 in restitution.
Whitaker was charged in April with aiding false returns, accused of helping to create fictitious dependents, inflated witholdings, education credits and unreimbursed business expenses, all of which brought clients refunds they did not deserve. The tax preparer also stood accused of making untrue statements on his own returns.
From 2010 to 2014, he operated under the names M&S Tax Service and MIX Tax Service. But Whitaker had a criminal record and could not get required tax preparer identification or filing numbers from the Internal Revenue Service. Court records show him convicted of charges including worthless checks and attempted larceny by employee.
So he used other people’s names and IDs, according to a news release from U.S. Attorney Robert Higdon.
In that time, he processed more than 2,000 tax returns. After the IRS searched his office in 2015, he continued to file another 1,361 returns electronically using a relative’s name, the release said.
Losses to the IRS are estimated at $2.8 million.
In 2018, a federal judge sentenced a Durham tax return preparer Laurean S. Robinson to 20 months in prison for helping prepare phony tax returns. She was working as an office manager at Tax Breaks, a service in the Bull City.