Local Tax Preparer Busted for Not Paying His Taxes

By Nicholas Phillips Wed., Jan. 4 2012 at 12:30 PM

Categories: See You in Court!

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Although Richard Gray Sr. spends some of the year working at a Chrysler plant in Indiana, he's been running a nice little side business out of his home in North St. Louis: Filing tax returns for friends, family and co-workers using TurboTax. He's even expressed a desire to do tax-prep full-time.

Trouble is, a lot of what he's doing is deceptive and illegal, according to a civil injunction suit filed yesterday in federal court by the U.S. Department of Justice. (It's not exactly a criminal charge, but rather a request that the Court shut down Gray's operation).

Now that an IRS investigation has concluded, the government alleges that:

In 2009, Gray earned between $20 and $100 per return on 134 returns, but didn't report it as income.
He creates sham businesses and fictitious dependent children to increase tax refunds for his clients.
In so doing, he cheated the U.S. Treasury during 2009 alone out of an estimated $500,000.

The case has been assigned to Judge Rodney Sippel.
USA v. Richard Gray Sr.

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