PHILADELPHIA - A federal jury, yesterday, convicted tax preparer David Nixon, 50, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, of 63 counts of fraud related to the preparation of federal income tax returns. A sentencing hearing is scheduled for July 7, 2015.
Nixon, as the owner of Economy Tax Services at 3731 Stanton Street in Philadelphia, prepared materially false federal income tax returns for his clients for tax years 2007 through 2009. The fraudulent returns included credits for children, earned income credit, tuition and fees, residential energy efficiency credits, incorrect filing status, and false or falsely inflated Form 1040 Schedule A deductions for charitable contributions and employee business expenses. More than 25 of the taxpayers testified during at trial that Nixon changed their filing status from married to head of household, inflated their charitable contributions, and/or created employee business expenses. The jury also heard a recorded meeting between Nixon and an undercover IRS agent during which Nixon said, “I cheated to get them [other taxpayers] two, three thousand," “I had a 99.9% record of people who’ve got refunds," and “my rule of thumb, let me get you some money before I get mine." The tax returns that Nixon prepared and filed increased the amount of the refunds his clients received. As a result of the false and fraudulent income tax returns prepared by Nixon, the IRS was defrauded of more than $200,000 in fraudulently obtained refunds.
Nixon faces a possible advisory sentencing guideline range of 33 to 41 months in prison, a fine of up to $21 million, up to one year of supervised release, and a special assessment of $6,300.
The case was investigated by the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigations and is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Anita Eve.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
