Corona Man Sentenced to 6 Years in Prison for Filing False Tax Returns for Clients and Causing at Least $28 Million Loss to IRS

RIVERSIDE, California – A Riverside County man has been sentenced to 72 months in federal prison for preparing and filing false tax returns for his clients, a decade-long scheme that caused a tax loss to the IRS of at least $28 million, the Justice Department announced today.

Salvador Gonzalez, of Corona, was sentenced on Monday by United States District Judge Jesus G. Bernal, who also ordered him to pay $403,908 in restitution.

Gonzalez pleaded guilty on June 17 to three counts of aiding and assisting in the preparation of false tax returns. 

Starting in 2013, Gonzalez operated Grace’s Lighthouse Resource Center, Inc., a Corona-based tax return-preparation business. During that time, on thousands of returns he prepared for clients, Gonzalez consistently directed his clients to create a phony corporation and to title their homes, cars, and other assets in the name of that corporation. Gonzalez then referred those clients to an associate to prepare these sham corporation’s tax returns. The associate would provide the clients with a blank spreadsheet and request that they input their business expenses into that spreadsheet.

At Gonzalez’s direction, the clients would include personal expenses such as their mortgage payments, car payments, and utility bills, and then provide the spreadsheet to the associate. The associate would, in turn, use the spreadsheet to prepare the business tax returns, which inevitably would show a loss. These fabricated losses flowed through to the clients’ individual income tax returns, and fraudulently reduced the amount of individual income taxes they paid.

Gonzalez then prepared the clients’ individual income tax returns, which incorporated the fraudulent business losses and offset their income. To further reduce the clients’ taxes owed to the IRS, Gonzalez also fabricated deductions on the personal returns such as unreimbursed employee expenses, cash contributions to charity, and medical and dental expenses. As a result of Gonzalez’s fraudulent return-preparation practices, his clients paid less taxes than they owed. 

Gonzalez profited from his return-preparation business. Before 2019, he typically charged clients a flat fee of $500 per tax return. In 2019, he started charging clients 1% of their gross income as a fee for his services.

In total, Gonzalez caused a tax loss to the IRS of at least $28 million, according to court documents.

Consistent with the plea agreement, the U.S. Attorney’s Office – Tax Section, filed a civil complaint in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, against Gonzalez. The complaint seeks to permanently enjoin Gonzalez from preparing, assisting in, directing, or supervising the preparation or filing of federal tax returns, amended tax returns, or other related documents or forms for others. The civil complaint alleges that over a period of years, Gonzalez has prepared tax returns that understate the federal income-tax liability of his customers using a scheme which has harmed the United States, the IRS, his customers, and the public.

Taxpayers seeking a return preparer should remain vigilant against unscrupulous tax preparers. The IRS has information on its website for choosing a tax return preparer and has launched a free directory of federal tax preparers. The IRS also offers tips to recognize tax scams and fraud.

In the past decade, the Justice Department has obtained injunctions against hundreds of unscrupulous tax preparers. Information about these cases is available on the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s website and the Justice Department’s website. An alphabetical listing of persons enjoined from preparing returns and promoting tax schemes can be found on this page.

IRS Criminal Investigation investigated this matter.

Assistant United States Attorney Eli A. Alcaraz of the Public Corruption and Civil Rights Section and Trial Attorney Lauren K. Pope of the Justice Department’s Tax Division prosecuted this case.