COLUMBIA, S.C. – A local tax preparer was sentenced to more than six years in federal prison for a fraud scheme by which she filed tax returns under 100 different taxpayers’ names and laundered almost $300,000 in refunds through her credit union accounts.
Dorothy Anderson, 47, was convicted of 18 counts of tax fraud, one count of theft of government property and one count of identity theft.
Anderson, who ran her own tax preparation company, got the names and Social Security numbers of more than 100 real people, then filed fraudulent tax returns for them for the year 2007 and she had the funds electronically deposited in her two accounts at Brookland CU in West Columbia in 2008. At trial, prosecution witnesses said they did not know about or authorize the tax filings that Anderson filed on their behalf.
Later, Anderson withdrew the funds from her credit union to pay off a mortgage and student loans and buy large numbers of consumables, including groceries at local stores.
