MIAMI, Fla. — The U.S. Department of Justice has released information regarding a case that cost the U.S. Treasury over three million dollars in losses.
Diandre Mentor, of Miami, worked for Neighborhood Advance Tax, a tax preparation company, between January 2017 and 2019.
Investigators say that Mentor and his co-conspirators fraudulently inflated client tax refunds by fabricating deductions on returns. They also held training sessions to teach other employees how to prepare fraudulent returns.
In 2020, Mentor and others would start their own tax return prep company named Smart Tax & Finance. They would expand to 12 franchise locations across the South and Central Florida areas.
Here, they would continue to prepare false tax returns and teach franchise owners and employees how to prepare them.
In total, Mentor caused a tax loss to the IRS of approximately $3,090,077.
Mentor will be sentenced at a later date and faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison, as well as a period of supervised release, restitution, and monetary penalties.
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