Santa Ana Federal Court Shuts Down Orange County Tax Preparer

LOS ANGELES - A federal court in Santa Ana, California, has permanently barred tax return preparer Ernesto Jesus Suarez, age 61, a resident of Orange, California, from preparing tax returns for others.  The civil injunction order, to which Suarez consented, was signed by Judge Cormac J. Carney of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.  Additionally, the order also prohibits Suarez from representing clients before the Internal Revenue Service and from aiding, advising, or assisting in the preparation of a federal tax return.

The Department of Justice’s complaint for permanent injunction followed the filing of a plea agreement in February 2012 between the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California and Suarez.  In the plea agreement, Suarez admitted to a scheme in which he would represent to taxpayer-clients that he was filing accurate returns and advance the refund amount on those returns to the clients, but would instead file false returns for those clients and direct the larger false refunds to be deposited into his accounts.  The returns contained false items such as false spouses for unmarried taxpayer-clients, false dependents, false dependent care expenses, false education expenses, and various credits to which his clients were not entitled including the earned income credit, additional child tax credit, and residential energy credit.  Suarez also admitted that, on his own return, he claimed a spouse to whom he was not married, claimed dependents that were not his own, and failed to report his true income from his tax preparation business, including the false return scheme.  Suarez received stolen tax refunds for his clients’ 2005 through 2009 tax years which were not reported on Suarez’s own income tax returns in the aggregate of at least $1,469,115.33.  Suarez is currently scheduled to be sentenced before Federal District Judge Stephen V. Wilson on October 15, 2012.

For questions or additional information about the civil injunction, please contact Carl Hankla, Trial Attorney, Tax Division, for the U.S. Department of Justice at (202) 307-6448 or Daniel Layton, Assistant U.S. Attorney, Tax Division, for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California, at (213) 894-6165.

For additional information regarding the criminal case, please contact Valerie Makarawicz, Assistant U.S. Attorney, Tax Division, for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California, at (213) 894-2729.