Date: February 23, 2022 Contact: newsroom@ci.irs.gov Orlando, FL — U.S. District Judge Wendy W. Berger has sentenced Marcos Antonio Tejeda to 18 months in federal prison for preparing false tax returns for himself and others. Tejeda had pleaded guilty on December 7, 2021. According to court documents, Tejeda owned and operated a tax preparation and accounting business. Tejeda provided personal and business accounting and tax preparation services for "S.M." in 2016, 2017, and 2018. As a part of these services, Tejeda maintained a business bank account into which S.M. deposited money for estimated tax payments to the IRS. In 2016 and 2017, Tejeda prepared a 1040 tax return for S.M. Each year Tejeda prepared two versions of the same tax return, one he claimed was accurate, and one he knew was false. The accurate tax return included the estimated tax payments S.M. made and was predominately correct. This first version in both 2016 and 2017 also showed that S.M. owed money in addition to the money he had paid in estimated tax payments. Tejeda then created a second, fraudulent tax return for tax years 2016 and 2017. The fraudulent tax returns were filed with the IRS. These fraudulent returns misrepresented S.M.'s business gross receipts, capital gains, gross income, adjusted gross income, and other statutory adjustments under the provisions of the Internal Revenue laws to fraudulently decrease the amount of taxes owed. Tejeda then embezzled the money that S.M. had provided for estimated tax payments and to pay the taxes that S.M. believed were owed based on the first version of the tax return created by Tejeda. In total, Tejeda embezzled $120,329.46 from S.M. Additionally, Tejeda did not report a substantial amount of his income on his personal or business taxes. As such, the amount of income that should have been reported on his Individual Tax Return for 2017 was an amount substantially more than the amount Tejeda had reported. "We are in tax filing season, and those who might consider preparing false tax returns should be aware of the consequences as evidenced today," said IRS Criminal Investigation Special Agent in Charge Brian Payne. "The sentencing of Tejada emphasizes that the IRS will continue our aggressive pursuit of those who attempt to defraud America's tax system." This case was investigated by The Internal Revenue Service – Criminal Investigation. It was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Amanda Daniels.
