Pacific tax preparer sentenced for filing false tax returns for immigrant clients
A Pacific resident was sentenced in U.S. District Court on Wednesday for leading hundreds of clients of his tax preparation business to file false tax returns by increasing deductions for supposedly unreimbursed business and education expenses
In one case, the man claimed a client had driven more than 33,000 miles for business in one year. However, the client did not own a vehicle, did not have a driver’s license and had never driven a vehicle in the United States, federal authorities said.
Jean Mpouli, 58, was sentenced by Judge John Coughenour to a year and a day in prison for 14 counts of aiding and abetting the filing of false tax returns, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Washington Nick Brown announced.
Coughenour ordered Mpouli to pay $31,296 in restitution.
Mpouli was sentenced for fraudulent business practices at a tax preparation business he operated with hundreds of clients, according to a news release. At the same time, Mpouli was working as an aviation inspector for the Federal Aviation Administration.
At his trial in September, prosecutors showed how Mpouli boosted his clients’ tax refunds by falsely increasing deductions for unreimbursed business and educational expenses, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office. The defendant took a percentage of the tax refund as a fee, so the higher the refund he could get, the larger the fee he took.
The government estimated the tax loss to be nearly $3.5 million, according to the release. Financial records show that during the time of the fraud, Mpouli was sending more than $300,000 to his native Cameroon to pay for the construction of an apartment building.
The defendant mainly offered tax services to African immigrants. In the news release, Brown said Mpouli took advantage of his clients’ lack of knowledge about U.S. tax law.
“Motivated purely by greed, Mr. Mpouli took advantage of the trust placed in him by his community – African immigrants and their descendants,” Brown said in the release. “Mr. Mpouli placed his clients in harm’s way, exposing them to audit, fines and penalties, and potential criminal investigation.”
According to case records and trial testimony, an IRS analyst noted in 2016 that an unusually large number of returns prepared by Mpouli claimed deductions for unreimbursed business expenses.
In 2017, the IRS sent an undercover officer into the business to investigate.
At first, Mpouli used the W-2 tax information the officer supplied to rightly determine the agent owed about $800 in taxes. But then, according to the news release, Mpouli offered to enter in about $34,000 in fraudulent expenses to boost the undercover officer’s refund to more than $5,600.
Mpouli told the agent the refund should be considered a loan if the agent were to be audited by the IRS. According to the release, Mpouli accepted $250 in cash as his fee for preparing the fraudulent return.
Agents executed search warrants at Mpouli’s business in September 2017 and found more than 1,200 personal tax returns on his computers. According to the release, hundreds of the tax returns showed suspiciously high amounts of unreimbursed business and education expenses.
Investigators contacted a random sampling of Mpouli’s clients and found that they were not aware of the extent of the deductions claimed on their behalf. Many did not own vehicles even though Mpouli listed unreimbursed car expenses. Others never attended the educational institution listed on the returns.
The clients said Mpouli did not discuss the returns with them before filing, and when they were notified that they were being audited, he refused to assist them, according to the release.
This story was originally published January 19, 2022 at 11:35 AM.
