North Carolina tax preparer sentenced to prison after arranging over $5M in false refund claims

ROCKY MOUNT, N.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS) — A North Carolina man was sentenced Thursday to 15 months in prison for preparing false trust tax returns on behalf of his Washington, D.C.-based and other clients.

According to court documents, Thy Muhammad owned and operated Seventh Millennium International, a Rocky Mount, NC, tax preparation business.

Authorities said in 2013 and 2014, Muhammad prepared fraudulent trust tax returns for clients, falsely reporting that the clients had paid taxes in the name of purported trusts.

One such false return resulted in the IRS issuing a refund check of more than $500,000, of which Muhammad took nearly $78,000 as a preparation “fee.” During these two years, Muhammad claimed a total of more than $5 million in fraudulent refunds from the IRS that his clients were not entitled to receive, authorities said.

In addition to the sentence of 15 months in prison, Muhammad has been ordered to serve three years of supervised release and pay $669,000 in restitution.