{"id":244458,"date":"2026-04-11T01:22:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-11T01:22:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/244458\/"},"modified":"2026-04-11T01:22:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-11T01:22:07","slug":"san-antonio-tax-preparing-business-owner-convicted-of-filing-false-returns-doj-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/244458\/","title":{"rendered":"San Antonio tax preparing business owner convicted of filing false returns, DOJ says"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">BEXAR COUNTY, Texas \u2013 A federal grand jury on Friday found a San Antonio woman guilty on 11 counts of falsifying tax forms on behalf of her clients. <\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">Natasha Sheree Banks-Brown, the owner of \u201cTasha\u2019s Total Tax Service,\u201d began running the business in 2016. Four years later, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) opened up an investigation into Banks-Brown\u2019s business on its belief that she had been preparing an \u201cincreasing number of questionable (tax) returns,\u201d the Department of Justice (DOJ) said in a news release. <\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">According to the IRS investigation, Banks-Brown, 45, filed clients\u2019 tax returns with \u201cfalse and fraudulent deductions and credits,\u201d which, in turn, allowed for the clients to rake in larger tax returns. <\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">Because Banks-Brown never quoted her clients a price for her services, investigators said she took a chunk of her clients\u2019 fees from their tax refunds and funneled them into a bank account she controlled, the DOJ said. Her clients would then receive a part of their return from her bank account.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">Several of her clients testified that they were unaware of how Banks-Brown orchestrated the scheme. Some told the court that they never received a copy of their returns nor reviewed the returns with Banks-Brown 1-on-1. <\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">Evidence shown to jurors during the trial revealed Banks-Brown filed nearly 1,200 tax returns between 2017 and 2021 and netted more than $8 million in tax refunds, according to a DOJ news release. <\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">\u201cEveryone 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 U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Texas Justin R. Simmons said in a news release. \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.\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">Banks-Brown is expected back in court for sentencing on July 13. <\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">More courts coverage on KSAT:<\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2026 by KSAT &#8211; All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BEXAR COUNTY, Texas \u2013 A federal grand jury on Friday found a San Antonio woman guilty on 11&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":170166,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[815,2088,50857,82,84,83],"class_list":{"0":"post-244458","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-antonio","8":"tag-courts","9":"tag-doj","10":"tag-irs","11":"tag-san-antonio","12":"tag-san-antonio-headlines","13":"tag-san-antonio-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244458","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=244458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244458\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/170166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}