Three Florida men associated with a former tax preparation firm that had offices throughout the Sunshine State are headed to federal prison.
The trio, along with other co-conspirators, fraudulently inflated client tax refunds by fabricating deductions on their returns, according to federal investigative documents. The result was false federal filings that cost the U.S. Treasury more than $15 million.
Federal prosecutors said that that the three men did more than just file false tax returns. They also held periodic training sessions at which they taught other employees how to do the same, according to the Department of Justice.
Jonathan Carrillo of St. Cloud and Franklin Carter, Jr. of Sanford were owner-operators of Neighborhood Advance Tax (NAT) from 2016 through 2020 when they created and carried out the tax scheme. They pleaded guilty to the false tax filing charges in late May, and were sentenced this week.
Carrillo received a 121 month federal jail term. Carter was sentenced to 84 months in prison.
Diandre T. Mentor of Miami, entered a guilty plea to the false filing charges in mid-May. Mentor, who was a NAT employee in 2018 and 2019, was sentenced this week to 36 months in prison.
In addition to prison time, U.S. District Judge Wendy W. Berger for the Middle District of Florida ordered Carter to serve three years of supervised release and to pay approximately $12,543,946 in restitution.
The judge also gave Carrillo a three-years supervised release condition, and ordered him to pay approximately $12,170,066 in restitution.
Mentor, too, was ordered by Berger to serve three years of supervised release, and to pay restitution of approximately $3,090,077.
Make sure your tax pro is legit: The conclusion of the investigation, which included agents from IRS Criminal Investigation, and sentencing of the Florida tax preparers underscores why it is critical for taxpayers to pay attention to their filings even when they are being prepared by others.
Make sure you thoroughly vet the tax pro you hire. Then, when you’re given your Form 1040 to sign, check it carefully for errors.
If you have any questions about anything on the return, don’t sign it until you get a clear and satisfactory answer about the entry(ies).
Tax Felon Friday: Want to catch up on other tax miscreants, from those just charged and/or indicted to those convicted and/or confessed and sentenced? Then check out the ol’ blogs’ special Tax Felon Friday page.
And if you want more tax crime posts, notably those that were published long before I gave them a special end-of-week feature, you can peruse, what else, the tax crimes category.
You’ll find this post at the top of that collection right now, so just scroll down for more.
You also might find these items of interest:
- Florida man pleads guilty to evading $2.4 million in federal taxes
- Bad tax shelter advice (and more) leads to Florida man’s federal indictment
- Florida man gets 5-year prison term for decades-long tax fraud scheme involving $20 million in foreign assets
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