In 1955 John Steinbeck wrote a piece for Holiday Magazine about his hometown: “Always Something to Do in Salinas.”
I am sure that when he wrote it, however, he was not considering tax preparer fraud to be one of those things.
According to Californian.com (by way of Joe Kristan) on Monday, Lydia Hernandez, proprietor of Lydia Hernandez Tax Services in Salinas County, CA., pleaded guilty to tax evasion:
Hernandez admitted she had prepared and filed 39 false returns for 13 clients from 2002 to 2005 through her Salinas business . . . . [S]he told prosecutors that she helped reduce her client’s taxable incomes to allow them to obtain bigger refunds.
An IRS investigation found Hernandez had knowingly filed for some clients who owned businesses unqualified deductions including gifts, dry cleaning, cell phone expenses, gym fees and union dues.
Moreover, Hernandez admitted to falsifying the amount of deductions for state and local taxes as well as filing false depreciation and mileage deductions for her clients.
Ms. Hernandez was an unenrolled tax preparer.
Her sentencing hearing will be held on November 2nd in San Jose where she will be subject to a maximum sentence of 3 years in prison and a $100,000 fine for the charge of aiding and assisting in the preparation of a false tax return and a maximum sentence of 5 years in prison for the charge of tax evasion.
0 responses so far ↓
There are no comments yet...Kick things off by filling out the form below.
Leave a Comment