SAN ANTONIO – A local tax preparer has been convicted by a federal jury of filing false tax returns after investigators said she used fraudulent deductions and credits to inflate client refunds and routed money through an account she controlled.<\/p>\n
Natasha Sheree Banks-Brown, 45, was convicted on 11 counts of aiding or assisting in the filing of a false tax return, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Texas Justin R. Simmons announced the verdict.<\/p>\n
According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, Banks-Brown owned and operated a tax preparation business called \u201cTasha\u2019s Total Tax Service\u201d beginning in 2016. <\/p>\n
In December 2020, the IRS Criminal Investigation began looking into what it described as an increasing number of questionable tax returns prepared by Banks-Brown.<\/p>\n
Investigators said Banks-Brown filed individual tax returns for clients that included false and fraudulent deductions and credits, which significantly increased refunds. <\/p>\n
The release said she did not quote a specific price for her services and told clients she would take her fee out of the return.<\/p>\n
As part of the scheme, prosecutors said Banks-Brown used tax preparation software that allowed her to direct refunds into a bank account she controlled. <\/p>\n
Clients would then receive a portion of the refund through a transfer from Banks-Brown\u2019s bank account to their accounts, according to the release.<\/p>\n
Multiple clients testified that they never received a copy of their tax returns or reviewed them with Banks-Brown and were unaware of her actions, the Justice Department said. <\/p>\n
Evidence introduced at trial indicated Banks-Brown filed close to 1,200 tax returns between 2017 and 2021 that resulted in over $8 million dollars of refunds.<\/p>\n
Banks-Brown was indicted on April 3, 2024, and arrested April 16, 2024. A jury was selected on April 6, 2026, and the four-day trial, presided over by U.S. District Judge David Ezra, began on April 7. A sentencing hearing is scheduled for July 13.<\/p>\n
Everyone rightly wants to get the best deal on their tax preparation and the largest refund possible, but some things are just too good to be true,\u201d Simmons said. \u201cThe public should be aware that tax preparers may have the incentive to defraud the IRS for their own personal benefit and to the detriment of their clients. This defendant abused the trust of her clients to make more than a million dollars for herself and cost the government several times that amount. This tax season, and every tax season, taxpayers should make sure to properly vet their tax preparers and keep an eye out for any suspicious behavior both to protect themselves and the country as a whole from these types of fraudsters.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe use tried and true investigative techniques, including undercover special agents, to document what a return preparer does when they think the government isn\u2019t looking,\u201d said Acting Special Agent in Charge Rodrick Benton of IRS Criminal Investigation\u2019s Houston Field Office. \u201cIn this case, the evidence was very clear that the tax fraud was committed. As tax season comes to a close, be careful who you let file your tax returns.\u201d<\/p>\n
IRS-CI investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Justin Chung and Ryan Groomer prosecuted the case.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN ANTONIO – A local tax preparer has been convicted by a federal jury of filing false tax…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":244197,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[82,84,83],"class_list":{"0":"post-244196","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-antonio","8":"tag-san-antonio","9":"tag-san-antonio-headlines","10":"tag-san-antonio-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244196","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=244196"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244196\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/244197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}