Stafford Tax Preparer Pleads Guilty To $600,000 Tax Fraud

RICHMOND, Va. – Daniel L. Jones, 56, of Stafford, pled guilty to two counts of aiding in the preparation of fraudulent tax returns for his clients and one count of making a false statement to the Internal Revenue Service that he was a certified public accountant.      

Dana J. Boente, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia; and Thomas J. Kelly, Special Agent in Charge, Washington D.C. Field Office, IRS-Criminal Investigation, made the announcement after the guilty plea in front of Magistrate Judge David J. Novak.  Jones will face a maximum exposure of 11 years in prison, 3 years of supervised release, $750,000 in fines, and full restitution when he is sentenced on August 21, 2014, before United States District Judge Robert E. Payne.

According to the court documents, Jones ran a tax preparation service for many years in the Fredericksburg area called the Tax Doctor Plus.  To increase refunds for his clients, he regularly prepared and electronically filed tax returns that contained false entries and items.  These included:  (a) improper filings statuses for married couples to place both taxpayers into lower tax brackets and create earned income credit opportunities for both; (b) false Schedules C, Business Income or Loss, with enough false deductions so that the client would qualify for the earned income tax credit; (c) false Schedule A expenses and education credits when there was no basis to claim such deductions or credits; and (d) false income with false W-2’s to qualify the taxpayer for the maximum amount of government credits, such as the earned income credit, various education credits, and the making work pay credit. 

In addition, to represent his clients before the Internal Revenue Service, Jones submitted to the IRS false Forms 2848 (Power of Attorney and Declaration of Representative) on which he falsely claimed he was a certified public accountant.  He has agreed that the total tax loss for the various false returns from 2009 to 2012 is approximately $600,000. 

This case was the product of an investigation by the Internal Revenue Service, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) and the U.S. Attorney’s Office.  Assistant United States Attorney David T. Maguire is prosecuting the case on behalf of the United States.

A copy of this press release may be found on the website of the United States Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Virginia at http://www.justice.gov/usao/vae.  Related court documents and information may be found on the website of the District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia at http://www.vaed.uscourts.gov or on https://pcl.uscourts.gov.