Texas Tax Preparer Is Permanently Barred from Tax Preparation for Allegedly Falsifying Returns for Overseas Customers and Impeding Audits

The Justice Department announced that yesterday a federal court in Ft. Worth, Texas permanently barred Karena Mondrianh, of Southlake, Texas, from preparing tax returns and from operating a tax-preparation business.  Mondrianh consented to entry of the preliminary injunctions without admitting the allegations against her.

In its complaint, the government alleged that Mondrianh prepared fraudulent tax returns understating customers’ income by inventing – sometimes without customers’ knowledge – false business expenses and by falsely claiming that customers’ income was exempt from tax.   According to the complaint most of Mondrianh’s customers work overseas for defense contractors. The permanent injunction order was signed by Judge John H. McBryde of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas.

The complaint further alleged that Mondrianh provided false information to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in improper attempts to delay IRS audits of customers.  She also allegedly urged a customer to lie to an IRS agent in order to forestall an IRS audit.  For more information about this complaint visit www.justice.gov/tax/2013/txdv13690.htm .

Return preparer fraud is one of the IRS’s Dirty Dozen Tax Scams for 2013 , which can be viewed at www.irs.gov/uac/Newsroom/IRS-Releases-the-Dirty-Dozen-Tax-Scams-for-2013 . In the past decade, the Justice Department’s Tax Division has obtained injunctions against hundreds of unscrupulous tax preparers.  Information about these cases is available on the Justice Department website at www.justice.gov/tax/taxpress2013.htm.