Preparer who falsified tax returns sentenced to 8 months

A Virginia Beach tax return preparer was sentenced Tuesday to eight months in prison after admitting that he falsified 65 to 70 returns, costing the government more than $100,000.

Alonzo C. Nelson, 47, of Norfolk, operated Nelson Income Tax Service at 2329 Virginia Beach Blvd. The Internal Revenue Service began investigating him in 2004 after agents noticed that the number of his clients receiving tax refunds was between 95 and 99 percent.

In March that year, an undercover IRS agent had a tax return prepared at Nelson's business. Nelson increased the deductions on the return to increase agent's refund from $13 to $1,973, according to a federal prosecutor's statement filed in court.

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"We want you to make more money," Nelson told the agent, the statement said.

IRS agents raided Nelson's office in May 2004. In an interview with agents, he admitted to falsifying as many as 70 returns, including for his business, the statement says.

The IRS estimates that it lost about $105,000 in the falsified tax returns. Authorities could not be reached late Tuesday to say whether the taxpayers would be held liable for those undeserved refunds.

In U.S. District Court on Tuesday, a federal judge also sentenced Nelson to five months of home detention and prohibited him from preparing tax returns while serving one year of probation.