A federal judge sentenced former St. Louis tax preparer Latasha L. Frison to 56 months in prison Wednesday and ordered her to repay $270,793 after a jury found she spent years filing falsified returns for clients while running a downtown tax-preparation business. The 39-year-old was convicted on all 16 counts of aiding and assisting in preparing and presenting false and fraudulent tax returns, with the falsified filings tied to six taxpayers across tax years 2020 through 2023.
U.S. District Judge Joshua M. Divine handed down the sentence, according to the Department of Justice, which said the case stemmed from Frison's preparation of false tax returns. Trial evidence showed that between 2021 and 2024, Frison filed more than 680 individual income tax returns, and all but two of them claimed a refund, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Missouri.
A Downtown Business Built on Fabricated Deductions
Frison opened her tax-preparation business in late 2017 and operated it under names including Taxed Rite, according to KTTN. The station's report says she created fictitious businesses for clients and claimed tens of thousands of dollars in fraudulent business expenses on Schedule C forms, while also improperly claiming a COVID-19 tax credit meant for taxpayers who were sick or caring for ill family members.
One of the more brazen fabrications involved fuel purchases. Per the same account, Frison invented qualifying fuel purchases for clients, including one return that claimed a full-time liquor store cashier had purchased 40,000 gallons of fuel in a single year. The falsified returns, the report notes, resulted in hundreds of thousands of dollars in refunds for which the taxpayers were not actually eligible.
High Fees, a $22,000 Refund, and a Spike in Credits
Frison's returns contained an unusually high percentage of credits compared with Missouri and national averages, the article notes. She also charged some clients unusually high fees — in one case quoting $700 for preparation before ultimately charging a client $5,000 after falsifying the return. That same falsified filing reportedly secured the client a $22,000 refund, even though the person had initially owed the IRS more than $20,000.
Over four years, Frison received at least $240,000 in tax-preparation fees, the same report states, and investigators say she spent more than $145,000 of that money at casinos in the St. Louis area. The Internal Revenue Service separately audited 37 additional returns through civil proceedings and found those contained false information as well, while investigators identified eight more returns with similar fabrications, according to the article.
Jury Rejects Her Defense That Clients Were to Blame
A jury returned guilty verdicts on all 16 counts following a trial that concluded in July 2025. Prosecutors alleged that Frison lied under oath during that trial, and she had blamed her clients for the false information that appeared on their returns, per KTTN's reporting. Frison lived in Cahokia, Illinois, when the offenses occurred and now lives in Texas, the outlet reports.
William Steenson, special agent in charge of IRS Criminal Investigation's Kansas City Field Office, said Frison profited by filing falsified information on her clients' returns, which resulted in ineligible refunds, caused losses to the U.S. Treasury, and created tax problems for the very clients she was paid to help. Steenson said combating taxpayer-funded fraud and maintaining fairness in the tax system remain agency priorities, according to the same KTTN report. IRS Criminal Investigation led the probe into the case.
How Return-Preparer Fraud Typically Works
The scheme fits a pattern federal authorities have flagged repeatedly in recent years. Return-preparer fraud generally involves the orchestrated filing of false income tax returns by preparers who claim inflated personal or business expenses, false deductions, unallowable credits, or excessive exemptions, according to the Internal Revenue Service.
Similar cases have surfaced elsewhere in recent years. A Dothan, Alabama tax preparer was sentenced to 57 months in federal prison for aiding and assisting in the preparation and filing of false tax returns, prosecutors with the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Middle District of Alabama announced. In a separate case, a Houston tax preparer admitted to multiple tax-fraud schemes that included inflating wages and withholding figures to increase clients' earned-income tax credits, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Texas.
