Three former Georgia tax preparers have been sentenced to prison for their roles in an identity theft scheme. The longest sentence, 56 months, was given to Greene Wylie Sheppard, who owned Quick Tax, a Cordele, Ga.-based preparation business.
Sheppard and two of his former preparers, Sabrina Johnson-Lavant and Chandra Henderson were sentenced for conspiring to defraud the United States by filing returns that inflated wages to obtain tax credits. Johnson-Lavant drew 18 months and Henderson, eight months.
Sheppard was also sentenced for aggravated identity theft.
The three sold other people's ID information to their clients and those identities were then listed as dependents on the clients' tax returns. The three purchased dozens of identities and kept notebooks to track these and how much clients owed them for false dependents.
The Justice Department and Internal Revenue Services said that over four years, Quick Tax and its clients claimed more than $400,000 in fraudulent returns.