A Barrington tax return preparer was sentenced to 16 months in prison for preparing and filing false tax returns for clients between 2014 and 2017.
Gary Sandiego, 53, of Barrington, owner and operator of G. Sandiego and Associates in Deerfield, filed false returns that reported fictitious or inflated unreimbursed employment-related expenses and false residential energy credits for clients between tax years 2014 and 2017, officials said in a news release Thursday.
The changes made resulted in a “significant reduction” of Sandiego’s clients’ total tax liability, causing a tax loss to the IRS of approximately $4,586,154.
In addition to his prison sentence, U.S. District Court Judge Jorge L. Alonso for the Northern District of Illinois ordered Sandiego to serve one year of supervised release and pay $2,910,442 in restitution to the IRS.
In 2018, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against Sandiego alleging that he had been inflating deductions and falsifying tax credits on his clients’ tax returns since as early as 2011. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Criminal Investigation Division conducted the investigation into Sandiego.
The IRS fined Sandiego in 2012 after he failed to comply with regulations.
Prosecutors said Sandiego continued “his pattern of preparing returns” through schemes despite the fine and warning.
“The fraudulent returns that Sandiego has prepared and filed have caused — and continue to cause — substantial harm to the Government by falsely reducing his customers’ reported tax liabilities, helping taxpayers avoid paying their fair share of tax or obtain refunds to which they were not entitled,” DOJ attorneys said in the 2018 lawsuit.
The IRS interviewed 44 of Sandiego’s clients and 43 of them reported he had reported incorrect and false information on their returns, the lawsuit said.
A judge in 2019 ordered Sandiego to pay $358,000 as a result of the lawsuit and also barred him from being a tax return preparer.
Sandiego could have been sentenced to up to three years in prison on each of his 17 criminal counts if convicted.