A married couple who are partners in a Louisiana tax preparation service are also allegedly partners in crime, according to prosecutors.
Ihsia and Tedrick Eugene of Secure Tax Service LLC in the Baton Rouge area face felony counts of fraud and tax evasion as the result of a joint anti-fraud investigation by the Louisiana Department of Revenue and the state Attorney General’s office.
Investigators say that as a partner in Secure Tax Service LLC, Ihsia Eugene filed tax returns claiming fabricated business loss deductions on behalf of clients who did not own businesses, or who had not sustained any business losses. The phony deductions resulted in $62,660 in fraudulent refunds.
She is also accused of underreporting the income she earned from Secure Tax Service. She reported earnings of $22,000 in 2012, although bank records indicated she earned $84,704.38. In 2013, she failed to file a tax return at all on earnings of $88,296. In all, she is suspected of evading state taxes on income of $151,000. She was booked into the East Baton Rouge Parish Prison on Tuesday on 11 counts of filing or maintaining false public records, 11 counts of computer fraud, two counts of criminal penalty for evasion of tax and one count of failure to file.
In a related case, Tedrick Eugene is charged with evading state taxes on income of $28,386 he earned from the tax prep business by failing to file a tax return in 2013. He was arrested and booked into the same prison on Tuesday on one count of criminal penalty for evasion of tax and one count of failure to file.
