United States Attorney Deborah R. Gilg announced that Adam Mwanza, age 43, of Miami, Florida, was convicted Wednesday, May 6, 2015, after a jury found him guilty of 13 counts of tax fraud for his involvement in assisting in the preparation of false tax returns. The Honorable Joseph F. Bataillon presided over the trial that was held last week in United States District Court. Sentencing has been set for August 7, 2015. Mr. Mwanza faces 3 years of imprisonment and a $250,000.00 fine on each count.
Mr. Mwanza was a tax preparer. In tax years 2007 and 2008 he was servicing a primarily immigrant client base. He would electronically file fraudulent returns falsely claiming rental deductions for what people were paying for their monthly rent expense and would fabricate Adjusted Gross Income amounts. The effect of the fraud was to inflate the amount of the refunds the taxpayer received.
The case was investigated by Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigations.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
