The owner of two tax preparation companies in Pittsburgh and Homestead who admitted that he helped file bogus returns for clients and ripped off the IRS is headed to federal prison for 30 months.
U.S. District Judge Cathy Bissoon imposed that term Monday on Brian VanDusen, 52, of Youngstown, Ohio.
VanDusen had pleaded guilty last year to assisting in the preparation of false returns following an investigation by the criminal investigation division of the IRS.
VanDusen ran EasyTax Returns in Warner Center in Downtown Pittsburgh and in Homestead.
One of his employees, Jessica Washington, also was charged in the scheme and pleaded guilty.
From 2014 to 2018, he and his workers prepared nearly 3000 returns. About a third of them included Schedule C forms for businesses that were falsified to claim earned income tax credits and refunds totaling $4.75 million.
IRS agents interviewed dozens of clients who confirmed that the Schedule C representations were lies and contained grossly exaggerated self-employment income and expenses without the taxpayer’s knowledge, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Greg Melucci. In exchange, the taxpayers received high tax refunds under earned income tax credit provisions.
A search of the Warner Center office turned up poor record-keeping and fake documents.
Investigators discovered that VanDusen told his workers to “play with” the income figures to come up with wage and business income. VanDusen also charged excessive fees for the bogus Schedule C attachments.
Melucci said the tax loss to the IRS was $994,824.
The government said that before he ran EasyTax, VanDusen operated Citi Tax Refund in Pittsburgh and pulled the same scheme.
Torsten covers the courts for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, but he's currently on strike. Reach him at jtorsteno@gmail.com.
