BEXAR COUNTY, Texas – A federal grand jury on Friday found a San Antonio woman guilty on 11 counts of falsifying tax forms on behalf of her clients.
Natasha Sheree Banks-Brown, the owner of “Tasha’s Total Tax Service,” began running the business in 2016. Four years later, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) opened up an investigation into Banks-Brown’s business on its belief that she had been preparing an “increasing number of questionable (tax) returns,” the Department of Justice (DOJ) said in a news release.
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According to the IRS investigation, Banks-Brown, 45, filed clients’ tax returns with “false and fraudulent deductions and credits,” which, in turn, allowed for the clients to rake in larger tax returns.
Because Banks-Brown never quoted her clients a price for her services, investigators said she took a chunk of her clients’ fees from their tax refunds and funneled them into a bank account she controlled, the DOJ said. Her clients would then receive a part of their return from her bank account.
Several of her clients testified that they were unaware of how Banks-Brown orchestrated the scheme. Some told the court that they never received a copy of their returns nor reviewed the returns with Banks-Brown 1-on-1.
Evidence shown to jurors during the trial revealed Banks-Brown filed nearly 1,200 tax returns between 2017 and 2021 and netted more than $8 million in tax refunds, according to a DOJ news release.
“Everyone rightly wants to get the best deal on their tax preparation and the largest refund possible, but some things are just too good to be true,” U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Texas Justin R. Simmons said in a news release. “The public should be aware that tax preparers may have the incentive to defraud the IRS for their own personal benefit and to the detriment of their clients. This defendant abused the trust of her clients to make more than a million dollars for herself and cost the government several times that amount.”
Banks-Brown is expected back in court for sentencing on July 13.
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