Athens tax preparer guilty of filing $3 million in fraudulent returns

From the United States Department of Justice:

ATHENS, Ga. – A tax preparer who admitted to filing more than $3 million in fraudulent tax returns on behalf of her clients is facing up to 30 years in prison for her crime.

Jessica Crawford, 33, of Athens, pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud and one count of aiding and assisting in the preparation and presentation of false income tax returns before U.S. District Judge Tilman E. “Tripp” Self, III on Nov. 22. Crawford faces a maximum of 30 years in prison to be followed by five years of supervised release and a $1,000,000 fine. Sentencing is scheduled for March 19, 2025, in Athens. There is no parole in the federal system.

“Jessica Crawford was an unscrupulous return preparer who allowed greed to cloud her judgement and neglect her responsibilities to help clients prepare and file a true and correct tax return,” said Demetrius Hardeman, Special Agent in Charge, IRS Criminal Investigation, Atlanta Field Office. “Crawford is not representative of most tax preparers who provide honest services to their clients. Taxpayers are urged to choose their tax preparer carefully, especially before tax season begins in January to have time to shop around. It is important to know that the responsibility for the information contained on the tax return is that of the taxpayer.”

"Jessica Crawford lied and took advantage of funds designed to help those who were truly in need during the pandemic," said FBI Atlanta's Acting Special Agent in Charge Sean Burke. "The FBI and our law enforcement partners will continue to identify and hold accountable anyone who defrauds taxpayers."

According to court documents and statements made in court, FBI agents investigating a multi-state unemployment benefit scheme conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic discovered text messages between individuals involved in the scheme and Crawford, a tax preparer with Crawford Tax Services in Athens. Crawford filed for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) benefits on behalf of those individuals, who had created fake businesses or submitted false information to fraudulently obtain benefits. In return, Crawford received a percentage of the ill-gotten gains.

As part of the continuing investigation, Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigations (IRS-CI) agents executed an undercover operation at Crawford’s business in April 2022. The undercover agent (UA) met Crawford to have taxes prepared, and Crawford asked if the UA did anything on the side. At first, the UA responded no, but Crawford said that expenses could be deducted if he did, and the UA said he mowed an aunt’s lawn sometimes, to which Crawford said that was good enough. The UA did not provide any income or expense amounts, but Crawford created a Schedule C business for landscaping on the UA's federal income tax return based solely on that interaction. Crawford prepared a Form 1040 and filed electronically, including a fictitious Schedule C loss of $19,373, and claimed an Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), a Child Tax Credit (CTC), and Qualified Business Income (QBI) deduction, which were affected by the fraudulent Schedule C loss. As a result, the UA’s return claimed a fraudulent federal income tax refund of $12,359.

The IRS completed a statistical review of 1,261 total tax returns filed by Crawford in tax years 2020 and 2021. Of those, the IRS determined that Crawford fraudulently filed tax returns on behalf of clients which resulted in losses to the IRS exceeding $3 million from falsely claimed Form 7202 credits for sick leave and family leave, tax credits and dependent care credits.

The case was investigated by the FBI and the IRS-CI.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert McCullers and Criminal Chief Leah E. McEwen are prosecuting the case for the Government.