Posted on Tue, Jan. 11, 2011
A Pembroke Pines woman has been barred from working as a tax return preparer, after federal investigators said she used bogus homebuyer tax credits to defraud the government of nearly $1 million.
A complaint released Monday by the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida alleges that Dianelys Armengol Guevara filed 129 tax returns with flawed homebuyer credit claims on behalf of people who were not eligible to receive them, totaling more than $950,000.
Looking to boost the troubled housing market, Congress passed a series of tax credits for first-time homebuyers between 2008 and 2010, offering up to $8,000 in tax refunds.
A 15-page federal complaint details how Guevara allegedly took advantage of the government's tax credit program with a string of bogus claims between 2008 and 2010.
``Guevara has repeatedly prepared returns for customers which contain false claims for the First-Time Homebuyer Credit, report fictitious wages, report false income and expense items on Schedule C, and fail to properly identify her as the paid preparer,'' the complaint read.
While working for Liberty Tax Service in Hollywood during the 2009 tax filing season, Guevara allegedly prepared 665 tax returns, claiming a first-time homebuyer's refund on 129 of those. According to the complaint, 126 of those claims, or 98 percent, were unqualified.
The complaint alleges that Guevara misled her clients, telling them they could claim a credit without purchasing a home, or use the tax return money for a future home purchase or claim a credit if they were remodeling their home.
She also made some claims without the knowledge of her customers and used a fake Social Security number to cover her tracks, the complaint said.
In 70 percent of the cases where a homebuyer tax credit was filed, the taxpayer had an adjusted gross income of less than $20,000.
``This absence of income reported on the returns should have alerted Guevara that the customers likely did not have sufficient funds to purchase a home entitling them to the credit,'' the complaint said.
Aleksandr Sorsher, Guevara's former manager at Liberty, said she worked as a tax preparer for four years, and although she was in her early 20s, she had a clean record before the homebuyer tax credit came along.
``It was the tax credit, '' said Sorsher, who fired Guevara after the IRS notified him of her conduct. ``There was such a loophole that was created, and some preparers tried to take advantage of it.''
According to the complaint and the subsequent injunction, Guevara admitted to making false statements on the tax returns, and consented to the injunction.
Judge Cecilia Altonaga's ruling says Guevara must provide the IRS with the names of all the people she has prepared tax returns for in the past two years, and also inform those people of the injunction.
