Harford County Woman Sentenced In Nationwide Tax Fraud Scheme

HARFORD COUNTY, MD — A federal judge has sentenced a Harford County woman to three years in prison for preparing false tax returns for District of Columbia residents as part of a nationwide tax fraud scheme.

According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, Charese Johnson, of Aberdeen, prepared 13 false income tax returns that collectively sought more than $6.6 million in refunds from the IRS.

Between 2014 and 2016, authorities said scheme participants held seminars throughout the country where they promoted the purported ability of taxpayers to utilize their mortgages and other debts to generate tax refunds.

Information was then collected from clients and provided to Johnson and others for use in the preparation of false returns. Those returns falsely claimed that banks and other financial institutions had withheld large amounts of income taxes from the clients, which entitled the clients to refunds. In reality, the financial institutions had not paid any income to or withheld any taxes from the clients, authorities said.

Johnson tried to conceal her role in the scheme by convincing one of her clients to mislead the IRS about Johnson’s involvement in the preparation of the client’s tax returns.

On July 1, 2021, Johnson was convicted at trial of three counts of helping others prepare false tax returns.

To date, federal prosecutors said more than a dozen other people around the country have been charged or convicted for their involvement in this multimillion-dollar scheme.

In addition to the term of imprisonment, a judge has ordered Johnson to serve one year of supervised release.