Sentencing for Tax Preparer Who Padded Returns

MOUNT VERNON, NY — A local tax preparer was sentenced Tuesday to 51 months in prison for preparing fraudulent income tax returns for this clients — and for himself.

Samuel Gentle operated GenGen Inc. and GenGen Financial, Inc. in Mount Vernon. From 2009 through 2012, his business prepared and submitted an average of 3,200 tax returns each year, some of which contained various inflated deductions for business expenses and gifts to charity.

According to the indictment, the loss from Gentle’s conduct was more than $630,000.

In addition to the prison term, the 59-year-old of Mount Vernon, New York, was sentenced to one year of supervised release and ordered to pay a $125,000 fine and to pay the IRS over $295,000 in back taxes.

SEE: Jury Finds Mount Vernon Tax Preparer Guilty on All Counts

“As established at trial, Samuel Gentle abused his position as a tax preparer to file false tax returns on behalf of his clients, himself, and his businesses," Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in the announcement. "His fraud resulted in over half a million dollars in losses to the IRS, and now a sentence of 51 months in prison for Gentle.”

The IRS sent an undercover agent in to get evidence against Gentle.

According to Bharara, the agent provided Gentle with no records that he could have used to support any deductions. But, consistent with his pattern, he included false and fraudulent deductions for business expenses and gifts to charity on the tax return he prepared for the undercover agent.

And, he also failed to report on his own personal and business tax returns nearly half of the $1 million in receipts that he received for his tax preparation services from 2010 through 2014. He spread the receipts across eight bank accounts at five banks, and he failed to issue required IRS forms to himself or his employees, further concealing from the IRS the amount of receipts he and his business had received.

As confirmed by IRS audits as well as the evidence at trial, Gentle's crimes resulted in a loss to the IRS of more than $550,000.

Bharara praised the investigative work of the Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation, and thanked the IRS for its assistance.

This matter is being handled by the Office’s White Plains Division. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Jennifer Beidel, Margery Feinzig, and James McMahon are in charge of the case.

Image: GenGen, Inc website.