An Illinois tax preparer faces the music after copping to cooking the books for his clients, resulting in a multimillion-dollar loss to the IRS, authorities said Thursday. Gary Sandiego of Barrington, who owned G. Sandiego and Associates, pleaded guilty to crafting phony income tax returns over several years.
According to a release from the Office of Public Affairs, Sandiego roundly inflated, or even fully made up expenses, fraudulently employing bogus Residential Energy Credits and employment-related expenditure write-offs from 2014 through 2017, he didn't rely on the actual figures given by his clients which led to fudging returns to claim tax breaks they weren't owed. The fiddled forms caused the IRS to be shortchanged by approximately $4.6 million.
With his day in court set for August 14, Sandiego could get a maximum of three years behind bars for each count of his deceitful dealings, as per the Office of Public Affairs. Beyond possible prison time, the tax trickster also faces supervised release, restitution, and further financial penalties. A federal district court judge will ultimately determine his fate, weighing the hefty $4,586,154 tax loss against the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines together with other relevant legal criteria.
Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General Stuart M. Goldberg, of the Justice Department’s Tax Division, announced the guilty plea, while IRS Criminal Investigation took the lead on unearthing Sandiego's scheme; Assistant Chief Andrew Kameros and Trial Attorney Sara Henderson of the Tax Division are responsible for prosecuting this case, ensuring that schemes such as these which short the government and honest taxpayers alike don't go unpunished.
