Tax preparers owe $1.9 million, get prison for false returns

[TexasTowelie]

Gulfport -- Preparing false tax returns for clients will cost the owner of a Gulfport business and his employee nearly $2 million, as well as time in a federal prison.

Jeremi Washington, owner of Flash Financial on Dedeaux Road, and Allen Brice Jr. were sentenced in federal court Thursday from an indictment unsealed in February 2016.

Chief U.S. District Judge Louis Guirola Jr. ordered a 63-month prison term for Brice, convicted on seven counts of fraud in January. Documents submitted as evidence at trial included an undercover officer’s tax form and recorded conversations.

Guirola ordered Brice, 35, to make restitution of $1,919,820.20 to the Internal Revenue Service.

Read more here: http://www.sunherald.com/news/local/crime/article146016054.html

[NanceGreggs]

1. I'm a court reporter.

Years ago, a not-very-astute reporter prepared a transcript where he had the witness (allegedly) stating that he didn't do his own tax returns, but had them done by a "Professional Tax Repairer" - capped as though it was some kind of official designation.

I think perhaps the title wasn't as far off the mark as we thought at the time.