Hammond Woman Sentenced for Operating Fraudulent Tax Preparation Business

Acting U.S. Attorney Duane A. Evans announced that ROJONAH HARRIS, age 35, of Hammond, was sentenced yesterday after previously pleading guilty to a one-count Bill of Information charging her with aiding and abetting in the preparation of false tax returns.

U.S. District Judge Lance M. Africk sentenced HARRIS to 30 months imprisonment, followed by one year of supervised release.  Additionally, HARRIS was ordered to pay $1,115,578 in restitution.

According to court documents, beginning in about 2012, HARRIS owned and operated a tax preparation business in Hammond, Harris Finance and Tax Service.  An investigation revealed that HARRIS regularly claimed false deductions and claimed false federal tax withholdings for her clients to generate unnecessarily large refunds to which they were not entitled.  In many cases, HARRIS created false W-2s for her clients that artificially and erroneously misstated the amount of income the customer had earned, including by overstating, understating, or fabricating income.  HARRIS also knowingly overstated federal income tax on W-2s that had been withheld from their income.  Additionally, in order to increase her clients’ tax refund, HARRIS fraudulently included false wages in the form of household help (“HSH”) income to which her clients were not entitled and provided no supporting documentation.  Further, HARRIS reported that some customers had qualified educational expenses when, as HARRIS knew, the customers had neither educational expenses nor documentation indicating expenses. HARRIS charged substantial tax preparation fees for the preparation and transmittal of these tax returns to the Internal Revenue Service; she earned not less than $582,090 in return preparation fees for preparing tax returns for tax years 2011 through 2013.

In total, between tax years 2011 and 2014, HARRIS prepared and filed not fewer than 267 false and fraudulent tax returns, resulting in inappropriate and unnecessary refunds of not less than approximately $1,115,578.   As part of her plea, HARRIS acknowledged a loss to the IRS of not less than $1,115,578, and agreed to repay at least that amount in restitution.

Acting U.S. Attorney Evans praised the work of the Internal Revenue Service - Criminal Investigation Division in investigating this matter.  Assistant United States Attorney Jordan Ginsberg was in charge of the prosecution.