An Orange County tax preparer was sentenced on Wednesday, Nov. 8, to 2 1/2 years in federal prison for submitting nearly 400 phony income tax returns that inflated his clients’ refunds without their knowledge and then pocketing the difference between the true and the inflated returns, authorities said.
Raudel Sandoval, 48, of Placentia pleaded guilty in March in downtown Los Angeles to two federal counts of aiding and assisting in the preparation of false and fraudulent tax returns, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.
Sandoval, a licensed tax preparer, owns RSE Sandoval España, a Downey tax preparation company.
He admitted to preparing hundreds of false federal and state returns for clients for the tax years 2015 through 2018. On these returns, he claimed false or inflated amounts of the child tax credit, business losses, short-term capital losses and other items to which the taxpayer clients were not entitled.
He also inflated the amounts of deductions and credits that his clients were entitled to claim, according to papers filed in Los Angeles federal court.
When he finished preparing a tax return, Sandoval gave his clients copies of their returns that were true and correct, but falsely told them he would file those copies with the Internal Revenue Service on their behalf, he admitted.
Sandoval then filed the false returns with the IRS.
Sandoval then directed the inflated refunds to himself, causing more than $750,000 in losses to the IRS, prosecutors said.
