Accountant Sentenced for Filing False Tax Returns

BOSTON – A Granby, Mass. accountant was sentenced today in U.S. District Court in Worcester in connection with filing false tax returns.

James Lowe, 53, was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Timothy S. Hillman to four months in prison and one year of supervised release, with the first three months to be served in home detention.  In June 2016, he pleaded guilty to three counts of filing false corporate tax returns for his accounting business and three counts of filing false personal income tax returns from 2011 to 2013. 

Lowe was the owner of an accounting and tax return preparation business in Chicopee.  From 2011 to 2013, Lowe under-reported his income on both his corporate and personal income tax returns by not disclosing certain checks generated from his accounting business.  Rather than depositing the checks into his business bank account, Lowe cashed some of these checks and deposited some of them into his personal bank account.  The false tax returns resulted in more than $118,000 in tax loss.

United States Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz and Joel P. Garland, Special Agent in Charge of the Internal Revenue Service’s Criminal Investigation in Boston, made the announcement today.  Assistant U.S. Attorney Alex Grant prosecuted the case.