Texas Woman Pleads Guilty to Preparing False Tax Returns

A Greenville, Texas, resident pleaded guilty today to one count of aiding and assisting in the preparation of false tax returns, announced Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Caroline D. Ciraolo, head of the Justice Department’s Tax Division and U.S. Attorney John R. Parker for the Northern District of Texas. 

According to documents filed with the court, Lourdes Ramirez, 39, was a tax return preparer operating under the names TX ASAP Tax Services and Fiesta Tax Service in Greenville.  Ramirez admitted that from at least 2011 through 2014, she willfully prepared and filed individual income tax returns for clients that reported materially false information, including false business income and losses, false credits and false deductions in order to produce fraudulently inflated refunds.  Ramirez prepared approximately 1,163 tax returns and caused an intended tax loss to the United States of approximately $1,155,383.

Ramirez is scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 21.  She faces a statutory maximum sentence of three years in prison, as well as a term of supervised release and monetary penalties.

Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Ciraolo and U.S. Attorney Parker commended special agents of Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigation, who conducted the investigation and Trial Attorneys Melanie A. Smith and Alexander R. Effendi of the Tax Division, who are prosecuting this case.

Additional information about the Tax Division and its enforcement efforts may be found on the division’s website.