The owner of a tax preparation service, Andrivia Wells, was indicted on charges of aiding and assisting in the preparation of fraudulent tax returns for her clients, filing false tax returns for herself from 2013 to 2017, failing to file a 2018 tax return and obstructing a criminal investigation by the IRS.
Wells owned and operated Rush Tax Services which had several locations in Charlotte, NC. It’s alleged that between 2013 and 2017, the company prepared more than 6,000 taxes returns, often claiming false filing statuses, false education credits, false Schedule C businesses and false fuel tax credits to inflate the taxpayers refunds. The tax preparation fees were taken directly from the client’s tax refunds and in many cases, the taxpayer was unaware of the fees which were frequently over $500. Rush Tax Services earned over $1.2 million during that time.
On the day that Wells was notified that she was the subject of a criminal investigation after being served a summons, a fire was intentionally set at one of the locations which destroyed client files, financial records and computer hardware.
Each count of aiding and assisting of the filing of a false tax return carries a maximum prison sentence of three years, failure to file carries a maximum sentence of one year, and the statutory sentence for destroying records is a maximum of no more than 20 years in prison.
A trial date is pending.
