PRESS RELEASE

For Immediate Release

Jim Letten, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Louisiana and Michael J. Nelson, Special Agent in Charge of the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation New Orleans Field Office announced today the sentencing of Yolanda Singleton. Singleton pled guilty on January 26, 2005 to a two count bill of information which charged Singleton with submitting false claims to the United Sates Treasury. The maximum penalties for this criminal violation are five years imprisonment, a $250,000 fine, and three years of supervised release.

According to the bill of information and factual basis, Singleton worked as a tax preparer for the New Century Tax Service ("New Century"), located in New Orleans East, during the 2002 tax season. During this period, Singleton submitted multiple false income tax returns to the United States Treasury. Specifically, from January, 2003 through April, 2003, Singleton prepared nineteen personal income tax returns on behalf of nineteen separate individual tax payers, including one on behalf of herself, for the 2002 tax year. In each of these nineteen personal income tax returns, Singleton made material false representations in that she listed individuals as dependents on IRS tax forms 1040 when she knew that said individuals were not dependents of the individual tax payers. By claiming the false dependents, the individual tax payers on whose behalf Singleton prepared the tax forms qualified to receive the Earned Income Tax Credit ("EITC"), which in turn allowed Singleton to request an inflated income tax refund on behalf of the individual tax payers. In some cases, the individual tax payers actually owed additional taxes to the government, but Singleton's false representations created the appearance that the tax payers were entitled to a refund. The false dependents listed by Singleton on the nineteen personal income tax returns were all inmates in the custody of the Louisiana Department of Corrections ("DOC") during 2002.

In addition to the above-mentioned nineteen false individual income tax returns, Singleton prepared and filed eleven fictitious individual income tax returns for tax year 2002 in the names of inmates who were in the custody of the Louisiana DOC during 2002. Singleton obtained the names and social security numbers of these eleven inmates and then prepared a 2002 IRS form 1040 on behalf of each inmate. Singleton utilized Schedule C to falsely claim business income by the inmates/alleged tax payers. She also falsely represented that the inmates/alleged tax payers supported dependants during tax year 2002 in order to qualify the inmates/alleged tax payers for the EITC. (The individuals whom Singleton listed as dependants on these tax returns also were inmates in the custody of Louisiana DOC during tax year 2002.)

The IRS computed the total loss to the government based upon Singleton's false claims as $73,725.

Prosecution of this matter was handled by Assistant United States Attorney Joseph A. Aluise.

RETURN TO CURRENT RELEASES LIST