Brockton Tax Preparer Pleads Guilty to Tax Fraud

BOSTON – The owner of a tax preparation business in Brockton pleaded guilty today to preparing false tax returns for others as well as filing a false tax return for himself.

Jose Miguel Spinola, 51, pleaded guilty to two counts of preparing false tax returns and one count of filing a false tax return. U.S. Senior District Court Judge Rya W. Zobel scheduled sentencing for March 23, 2021. In June 2020, Spinola was charged by indictment.

On numerous occasions between 2014 and 2017, Spinola prepared and filed income tax returns for clients that contained false, inflated and incorrect information on his clients’ IRS Form 1040, U.S. Individual Income Tax Returns and attached schedules. Spinola added false, inflated and ineligible expenses on his clients’ Schedules A for medical and dental expenses and unreimbursed employee business expenses, including claimed meals and entertainment, business miles and work apparel. By inflating Schedule A deductions, Spinola decreased his clients’ taxable income and effectively increased the clients’ tax refunds. Spinola informed his clients of the total tax refund they would receive from the IRS without telling the clients about the false, inflated, or ineligible expenses Spinola deducted from his clients’ income tax returns.

Each count of aiding the preparation of false tax returns and filing false tax returns provides for a sentence of up to three years in prison, three years of supervised release and a fine of $250,000 or twice the gross gain or loss, whichever is greater. Sentences are imposed by a federal district court judge based upon the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

United States Attorney Andrew E. Lelling and Joleen Simpson, Acting Special Agent in Charge of the Internal Revenue Service’s Criminal Investigations in Boston made the announcement today. Assistant U.S. Attorney Sara Miron Bloom of Lelling’s Securities, Financial & Cyber Fraud Unit is prosecuting the case.