A federal grand jury has indicted Bruce King, owner of a Montgomery, Ala.-based tax preparation business, and four other preparers that worked at his firm. All five are charged with participating in a scheme to file false tax returns with four of them were charged with aggravated identity theft.
King, owner of Premier Tax, along with preparers Jenika Williams, Antoinette Djonret, Nakesha Donaldson, Angela Smith and Vonecia Orum face charges of filing false returns. Williams, Djonret, Donaldson and Smith were also indicted on the wire fraud and identity theft charges. The indictments allege that from July 2007 to October 2010, King instructed employees on how to falsify tax returns in order to inflate refunds sought. The business operates at other locations in Alabama and Georgia.
Besides preparing false returns, the other four individuals were charged with using the names and Social Security numbers of individuals without their knowledge and reporting these as dependents on customers' tax returns. Williams, Djonret, Donaldson and Smith.
All five face a maximum of five year in prison for conspiring to defraud the United States and a potential maximum of three years for each count of aiding in the preparation of false tax returns. Williams, Djonret, Donaldson and Smith also face a potential maximum of 20 years for each wire fraud count and a mandatory two-year sentence for the aggravated identity theft counts if convicted.
