Tax prep company filed false returns — and 2 are indicted in South Carolina, feds say
Two South Carolina women filed more than two dozen falsified tax returns, lying on forms about exemptions and credits to get higher refunds, according to federal indictments filed Tuesday.
The court filings say Donna Faye Shird and Felicia Renee Shird, working under the name Donna’s Income Tax Service in Florence, South Carolina, filed 25 fraudulent federal tax returns between 2012 and 2017.
The two lied about child tax credits, moving expenses, residential energy credits and others to get bigger refunds for tax preparation customers, the feds allege. The Internal Revenue Service lost from about $900 to almost $9,000 for each of the false returns, according to the indictment.
Most of the customers with fraudulent returns got at least $2,000 back from the IRS that they should not have received, the indictment alleges.
The indictments say the two filed the individual income tax returns electronically with the IRS, a federal felony. The women could face up to three years in prison and a $100,000 fine for each count, according to the Legal Information Institute at Cornell Law School.
Donna Shird faces 12 counts and Felicia Shird is charged with 15, according to the indictments.
