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L.A. CPA Gets 24-Month Sentence

Monday, Apr 29 2013
Tax
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DOJA CPA formerly based in Los Angeles has been sentenced to 24 months in prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy to defraud the United States. Masood Chotani also drew one year of supervised release in addition to prison time after admitting he used the names and Social Security numbers of deceased individuals to file tax returns with the Internal Revenue Service. Chotani was arrested after being a fugitive for three years in Pakistan.

According to the indictment and the plea agreement, in 2002 and 2003, Chotani took employer identification information from client files and provided them to co-conspirators, Haroon Amin and Ather Ali, who then prepared and filed phony returns Chotani was accused of triggering $372,558 in illegitimate refunds on 47 tax returns. After being apprehended, he pleaded guilty to the charge in January.

The returns claimed refunds of more than $2 million. While the IRS rejected most of the returns, some refund checks were issued to Amin, Alin and co-conspirators. Most were deposited in bank accounts in Armenia and Pakistan.

Chotani admitted that he was a knowing participant in this scheme. Amin and Ali each pleaded guilty to the same charge in 2010. Amin is serving a 30-month prison term and Ali, 37 months.

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