FORT SMITH -- An Altus woman pleaded guilty in federal court Monday to charges she inflated federal income tax deductions for clients and took some of the resulting higher refunds for herself.
Amber Barbour, 36, pleaded guilty to two counts of aiding or assisting in the filing of a false income tax return before U.S. District Judge P.K. Holmes III. She could be sentenced to three years and fined up to $250,000 on each charge.
A sentencing date was not set. She remained free on bond.
Barbour has agreed to pay $112,443.47 in restitution, according to her plea agreement with the government. The government said the total tax loss attributed to Barbour was more than $250,000 but less than $550,000.
Barbour took a portion of the taxpayers' fraudulent refunds as payment for preparing the returns, the plea agreement said. She used an Internal Revenue Service form to direct much of the payments to accounts she controlled at Simmons Bank and Bank of the Ozarks.
"Some taxpayers were unaware of the actual amount of their refund and were thus unaware of the amount that Barbour took as payment," the plea agreement said.
Barbour initially was charged in an Oct. 17 federal indictment with six counts of the false-tax-return charges.
The plea agreement said Barbour prepared tax returns for clients in Altus for the tax years 2012, 2013 and 2014. During an investigation, the Internal Revenue Service identified at least 23 tax returns that appeared to contain false information intended to increase the amount of the tax refund. They included such things as deductions for gifts to charity.
In one of the two cases for which Barbour pleaded guilty, a return prepared in 2014 for a client identified as R.M.A., she listed him as head of household, for which he did not qualify, reported $54,038 in itemized deductions that contained false information and $29,675 in gifts to charity.
R.M.A. denied he provided that information to Barbour and Barbour never asked him about gifts to charity, the plea agreement said.
The other charge to which Barbour pleaded guilty was a return for R.A., R.M.A.'s wife, the plea agreement said. In it, Barbour listed R.A. as the head of household, for which she did not qualify.
Barbour also reported R.A. as the sole proprietorship of a business cleaning houses that Barbour named "Rhonda's Dirt Away." She listed gross receipts for the business as $15,000.
"R.A. did not have a business cleaning houses in 2014, nor did she tell Barbour that she did," the plea agreement said.
The plea agreement said R.M.A.'s 2014 tax returns claimed a refund of $11,089 and R.A.'s return claimed a refund of $4,981. The total for the two was $16,070, which was inflated by $6,957.
Barbour directed $7,400 of the refund amounts to her bank accounts, according to the plea agreements.
State Desk on 03/19/2019