{"id":239200,"date":"2026-04-07T19:45:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T19:45:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/239200\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T19:45:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T19:45:11","slug":"houston-area-tax-preparer-indicted-for-filing-false-returns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/239200\/","title":{"rendered":"Houston-area tax preparer indicted for filing false returns"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/GettyImages-1240081967.jpg\" alt=\"\" data-v-7d0efd03=\"\"\/> article <\/p>\n<p data-v-7d0efd03=\"\">(Photo by Bernd W\u00fcstneck\/picture alliance via Getty Images) <\/p>\n<p data-v-f1afc186=\"\">HOUSTON &#8211; A Houston-area woman is accused of willfully helping clients file false tax returns with the Internal Revenue Service.<\/p>\n<p original-article-post=\"\" origination_station=\"KRIV\" data-v-ec26887a=\"\" data-v-f1afc186=\"\">What we know:<\/p>\n<p data-v-f1afc186=\"\">Bobbie Zermeno, also known as Roberta Villareal, is accused of adding false credits or deductions to tax returns to lower tax liability for her clients.<\/p>\n<p data-v-f1afc186=\"\">U.S. Attorney John G.E. Mack said Zermeno would use false Schedule C losses for businesses that did not exist and false car mileage records that would fraudulently increase her clients&#8217; tax refunds, sometimes by thousands of dollars.<\/p>\n<p data-v-f1afc186=\"\">Zermeno would earn money from the scheme by charging preparation fees to her clients. The Department of Justice said some of those fees were not disclosed to those clients.<\/p>\n<p data-v-f1afc186=\"\">The DOJ said Zermeno ran her tax preparation business in Houston between 2017 and 2022.<\/p>\n<p original-article-post=\"\" origination_station=\"KRIV\" data-v-ec26887a=\"\" data-v-f1afc186=\"\">What&#8217;s next:<\/p>\n<p data-v-f1afc186=\"\">Zermeno was scheduled to make an initial court appearance Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p data-v-f1afc186=\"\">She&#8217;s facing 14 counts of aiding in the preparation and filing of false tax returns. Each count carries a maximum sentence of three years in prison and fines up to $250,000 if convicted.<\/p>\n<p class=\"group-source-paragraph\" data-v-4fbf7207=\"\">The Source: Information in this article comes from the U.S. Attorney&#8217;s Office for the Southern District of Texas.<\/p>\n<p>    <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox26houston.com\/tag\/us\/tx\/houston\" class=\"tags-tag\" data-v-f1afc186=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Houston<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox26houston.com\/tag\/crime-publicsafety\" class=\"tags-tag\" data-v-f1afc186=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Crime and Public Safety<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"article (Photo by Bernd W\u00fcstneck\/picture alliance via Getty Images) HOUSTON &#8211; A Houston-area woman is accused of willfully&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":239201,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[1046,56,58,57,223,216,393],"class_list":["post-239200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-crime-publicsafety","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news","tag-news","tag-tx","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=239200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239200\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/239201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}