Alabama Tax Return Preparer Sentenced to Jail for Preparing False Tax Returns for Clients

An Alabama tax return preparer was sentenced to serve 36 months in prison for aiding in the preparation of false tax returns, the Justice Department and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced today. 

Russell Burroughs was also ordered to pay restitution in the amount of $211,960.

According to court documents, during the 2008 through 2010 tax seasons, Burroughs owned and operated Computer Services, a tax return preparation business, located in Montgomery, Alabama.  Burroughs admitted that he deliberately falsified information on client tax returns in order to illegally generate higher tax refunds.  He intentionally included false items such as false business income and losses, false Schedule A deductions, false real estate rental losses, false education credits and false energy credits in order to inflate his client’s refunds.  At his sentencing hearing, the court found that the tax loss associated with the false returns Burroughs filed exceeded $2.9 million.

This case was investigated by special agents of IRS - Criminal Investigation.  Trial Attorneys Katherine Reinhart, Charles M. Edgar Jr. and Michael Boteler of the Justice Department’s Tax Division are prosecuting the case.