New York Tax Return Preparation Business Owner Sentenced to Prison for Preparing False Tax Returns

A Staten Island, New York, tax return preparer and business owner was sentenced to prison today for preparing false federal income tax returns, announced Acting Assistant Attorney General Caroline D. Ciraolo of the Justice Department’s Tax Division. 

Alabi Gbangbala aka Babatunde Alabi Babaia, 52, was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Carol Bagley Amon to serve 18 months in prison, followed by one year of supervised release, and ordered to pay $178,209 in restitution to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).  Gbangbala pleaded guilty on June 1, 2015, to one count of preparing a false tax return.

According to court documents and in-court statements, Gbangbala was the operator of Broadfield, a tax return preparation business located in Staten Island.  For tax years 2008 and 2009, Gbangbala prepared false federal individual income tax returns for Broadfield clients by, among other things, failing to report accurate exemptions, falsifying business receipts and losses on Schedules C, and inflating or fabricating charitable contributions and unreimbursed employee expenses.  He also filed false tax returns for himself by underreporting his income for tax years 2008 through 2010. 

Acting Assistant Attorney General Ciraolo commended the special agents of IRS-Criminal Investigation, who investigated the case, and Trial Attorneys Mark S. McDonald and Christopher P. O’Donnell of the Tax Division, who are prosecuting the case.