Lynn Tax Preparer Sentenced for Tax and Identity Fraud

BOSTON – A Lynn tax preparer was sentenced today in U.S. District Court in Boston in connection with a scheme to file fraudulent tax returns and pocket the excess refunds she fabricated.

Claudia Carredano, 46, was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge George A. O’Toole, Jr. to 30 months in prison, three years of supervised release and ordered to pay restitution of $320,760 and forfeiture. In March 2016, she pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud and one count of identity theft.

Carredano co-owned Maya Multi Services, a tax return preparation business operating on the North Shore. From 2008 to 2011, Carredano devised and executed a scheme to defraud the Internal Revenue Service by filing false tax returns on behalf of her clients. To do this, Carredano filed dozens of false tax returns for her clients that included fraudulent dependents—real people who were not the dependents of her clients—intended to increase the tax refund amount, generally without her clients’ knowledge. Carredano then directed the inflated portion of the refunds to be deposited into her bank account. In order to conceal the scheme, Carredano gave her clients versions of their tax returns that did not reflect the fraudulent dependents and sought smaller refunds than the returns she actually filed with the IRS.

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. The case was investigated with the cooperation of the Massachusetts Department of Revenue. Assistant U.S. Attorney Brian A. Pérez-Daple of Ortiz’s Economic Crimes Unit prosecuted the case.