An Agawam tax preparer has been sentenced to prison after pleading guilty to the charge of filing false tax returns. On September 5, 2024, U.S. District Court Judge Julia E. Kobick imposed a sentence of two months of incarceration, to be followed by a year under supervised release, including six months of home confinement, on local tax professional Colleen Gruska, 66. Additionally, Gruska is to pay restitution amounting to $261,102 to the Internal Revenue Service, as per the U.S. Attorney’s Office statement.
The case against Gruska, which was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Steven H. Breslow of the Springfield Branch Office, came to a close earlier this year after she pleaded guilty to four counts of filing false tax returns. Over a decade-long period, Gruska purposefully defrauded the government by preparing and filing numerous inaccurate tax returns. These filings claimed losses from non-existent businesses or were grossly exaggerated, effectively understating or zeroing out the amount of federal income tax due from the taxpayer. In one instance, she reported fraudulent expenses of $189,000 across four years, for a fictitious house and yard cleaning business, which helped her to wrongfully avoid paying $36,079 in taxes.
Gruska's misconduct didn't stop at her own tax filings. She extended her fraudulent practices to include relatives and other individuals, crafting false narratives of phantom businesses to benefit her clients' returns. For example, a relative reportedly had a soccer coaching business with expenses claimed at $233,561, even though this business did not exist. This specific fabrication permitted said relative to sidestep paying $39,599 in taxes. These actions collectively resulted in a sizeable financial loss to the IRS, totaling over a quarter-million dollars.
Acting United States Attorney Joshua S. Levy and Special Agent in Charge Harry Chavis, Jr., from the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation's Boston Field Office, announced the outcome of the proceedings.
