Federal prosecutors say a Buffalo-area man has been charged with preparing fraudulent tax returns at an income tax business he ran in Rochester. And U.S. Attorney William Hochul says this may only be the tip of the iceberg.
Hochul says 55-year-old Frank Wilson of Tonawanda may be linked to a much larger nationwide fraud scheme that generated more than 3,500 fake tax returns and tried to claim more than $12 million in refunds. He’s currently charged with preparing at least 18 false returns, claiming more than $90,000 in refunds.
Many of the taxpayers who hired Wilson to prepare their returns didn’t bother to review the forms and didn’t notice that he’d claimed fraudulent refunds. He allegedly kept the extra refund money.