Lafayette tax preparer sentenced to 36 months in prison for making, filing a false tax return

ALEXANDRIA, La. – Acting U.S. Attorney Alexander C. Van Hook announced that a Lafayette tax preparation business owner was sentenced last week to 36 months in prison for filing a false tax return and not paying more than $350,000 in taxes owed.

Kevin Dalcourt, 49, of Lafayette, was sentenced Friday by U.S. District Judge Dee D. Drell on one count of making and subscribing a false tax return. He was also sentenced to one year of supervised release, and he was ordered to pay $397,989.78 restitution and an $89,927 fine. According to the April 19, 2017 guilty plea, Kevin Dalcourt was a tax preparer who owned and managed Kevin’s Tax Service in Lafayette. He was incarcerated in 2010 on non-tax related state charges but continued to manage his tax preparation business. He trained his staff and managed his business prior to his incarceration to use false information in customer tax returns to increase the amount of the customers’ returns. The defendant’s wife, Tamiko Dalcourt, assisted in running the company from 2010 to 2013, while her husband was in prison. Tamiko Dalcourt pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of failing to file the couple’s 2012 joint tax return. Kevin’s Tax Service was highly profitable, but Kevin Dalcourt did not report his income to avoid paying taxes for tax years 2009 to 2011. In that time he avoided paying an estimated total of $356,426.78 in taxes for those three years.

Tamiko Dalcourt pleaded guilty on March 23, 2017 to one count of willful failure to file a return, supply information or pay tax. She faces one year in prison, one year of supervised release and a $100,000 fine.

The IRS conducted the investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorney Myers P. Namie prosecuted the case.