According to Law360, a Miami-area tax preparer was sentenced to nearly five years in prison after admitting to filing thousands of individual tax returns wrongly claiming energy credits, resulting in a $20 million loss for the Internal Revenue Service, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida.
Beatriz Toledo, 61, of Hialeah, Florida, received her sentence during an appearance before U.S. District Judge David S. Leibowitz in Miami federal court after previously pleading guilty to three counts of aiding and assisting in the preparation of false tax returns as part of a deal with federal prosecutors.
Southern District of Florida prosecutors said in a statement released Friday that a federal judge in 2010 issued a permanent injunction barring Toledo from similar conduct. In exchange for pleading guilty to the three charges in December, prosecutors agreed to dismiss 12 additional charges of preparing false tax returns and one contempt of court charge.
In the April 2024 indictment against Toledo, prosecutors said she resumed filing false tax returns through her company, Immigration and Tax Service Group LLC, despite the injunction. Between 2017 and 2021, Toledo allegedly prepared about 7,800 false tax returns that fraudulently claimed the residential energy credit, which gives taxpayers a credit for qualifying energy-saving expenses incurred from improvements to their homes.
When preparing and filing the returns, Toledo listed her company as the official tax preparer, knowing that she was prohibited from filing false tax returns because of the injunction, prosecutors said.
A factual proffer filed in December said more than 10 individuals were interviewed by law enforcement and all said no energy-saving improvements were made to their homes and they had never spoken to Toledo about the credit. In addition, the individuals said "large sales tax and business expense deductions" listed on their returns were inconsistent with their actual finances, according to the proffer.
As a result of filing the false returns, Toledo made about $7.1 million that she took directly out of her clients' tax refunds.
The government filed a memorandum on March 13 urging the court to impose the high end of a sentencing range between 46 months and 57 months due to Toledo's "pervasive history of fraud" and the "sophistication or extensiveness" of her scheme.
Before her injunction, in the late 1990s, Toledo was tried for money laundering but was acquitted of all charges.
"If ever a case calls for it, this one does," said Will J. Rosenzweig of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida, representing the government, in his memo.
In her sentencing memo filed on Monday, Toledo acknowledged the injunction but "vehemently" denied preparing any fraudulent tax returns and also said it was improper for the government to use her money laundering trial to advocate for a harsher sentence.
Toledo also asked the court to go easy on her due to health reasons, citing significant health problems stemming from brain cancer years ago, no criminal history and a 93-year-old mother she resides with who depends on her. Toledo asked for probation with 12 months of home confinement.
Have an IRS Tax Problem?
Contact the Tax Lawyers at
www.TaxAid.com or www.OVDPLaw.com
or Toll Free at 888 8TAXAID (888-882-9243)
Read more at: Tax Times blog
