SAN ANTONIO – A San Antonio woman convicted of falsifying tax forms on behalf of her clients was sentenced to federal prison and ordered to pay more than $3.8 million dollars in restitution, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Tuesday.
In a news release, the DOJ said a federal judge sentenced Natasha Sheree Banks-Brown, 45, to 53 months in prison. She was also ordered to pay $3,824,887 in restitution and $1,100 in special assessments.
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In April, Banks-Brown was convicted of filing false returns through her business, Tasha’s Total Tax Service, which she started in 2016.
The IRS opened an investigation into her business in 2020 amid an “increasing number of questionable tax returns prepared by Banks-Brown,” the DOJ said.
According to the DOJ, Banks-Brown filed clients’ tax returns with “false and fraudulent deductions and credits,” which, in turn, allowed for the clients to rake in larger tax returns.
Because Banks-Brown never quoted her clients a price for her services, investigators said she took a chunk of her clients’ fees from their tax refunds and funneled them into a bank account she controlled, the DOJ said. Her clients would then receive a part of their return from her bank account.
Banks-Brown was indicted and arrested in April 2024. According to the DOJ, she was found guilty two years later on 11 counts following a four-day jury trial.
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