Tax Preparer Gets 3 Months In Prison For Helping Client Cheat On His Taxes

LOS ANGELES, CA — The owner of a Los Angeles tax preparation company was sentenced Friday to three months in prison after he was found guilty of helping a client file a false tax return that underreported income, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

Bijan Kohanzad, 63, of Calabasas pleaded guilty in February to one federal count of aiding and assisting the filing of a false tax return at his Encino-based tax preparation business. His sentence, handed down Friday, also includes an order to pay a $40,000 fine, according to prosecutors.

Between 2015 and 2017, Kohanzad counseled a client to reduce the client's taxable income by falsely increasing the client's business expenses reported on tax returns, prosecutors said.

The client's company's 2015 return claimed $150,000 in advertising expenses, a claim that Kohanzad knew was false. The claim reduced the company's income from about $326,000 to some $176,000, and fraudulently reduced the income the client would then report on his individual tax return, according to prosecutors.

Kohanzad advised the same client to file a false individual 2015 tax return, in which the client failed to report the approximately $150,000 in concealed income that the client received through his company. The client's personal tax return falsely reported a taxable income of $127,878 as a result, when the actual amount exceeded $278,000, prosecutors said.

The total loss Kohanzad caused to the IRS for the two tax years was about $401,436. Kohanzad admitted in his plea agreement that he acted willfully and that he voluntarily and intentionally violated federal law, prosecutors said.

City News Service contributed to this report.