Owner of tax business sentenced, fined for fraudulent returns

The owner of a Brampton, Ont.-based tax preparation business received a conditional two-year sentence and almost $100,000 in fines for preparing 100 fraudulent returns, CRA said in a release Thursday.

The Ontario Court of Justice sentenced Ajay Sharma last month to the conditional sentence and three years of probation, as well as a $96,946 fine, the release said. Sharma pleaded guilty last fall to one count of fraud over $5,000 under the Criminal Code, it said.

CRA’s investigation found that Sharma, through his business S & S Associates, prepared 100 fraudulent individual tax returns for 37 clients for the years 2009 to 2012. He “created fictitious business losses totalling $2,577,221, resulting in the evasion or attempted evasion of a total of $488,178 in federal taxes,” the release said. Sharma’s personal benefit was $96,946 by charging clients a percentage of their refunds.

Between April 1, 2006, and March 31, 2017, the courts convicted 55 tax preparers for tax evasion related to their tax affairs or those of their clients, and sentenced the tax preparers to over $4.6 million in fines and 703 months of jail time, CRA said.

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Staff

The staff of Advisor.ca have been covering news for financial advisors since 1998.