Man jailed six years in $2.9M tax fraud

EDMONTON •Atax-preparer found responsible for filing $2.9 million in false claims to the Canada Revenue Agency has been sentenced to six years prison and ordered to pay close to $300,000 in restitution to 10 of his former clients.

Chander Mohan Sharma, who was found guilty of one count of defrauding the Canada Revenue Agency of over $5,000 last year, was sentenced Thursday in Alberta Provincial Court.

During the trial, the 60-year-old was found to have made millions of dollars in false claims resulting in about $600,000 of fraud in the form of tax revenue owed to the Government of Canada.

His unwitting clients were left on the hook for about $150,000 to the Canada Revenue Agency.

Court heard that although Sharma told the clients his fee was 50 per cent of any refund received, he also indicated he would go through their old tax returns, up to 10 years back, and recover money that they were owed.

Sharma then filed expenses related to self-employment, employment and farming that were either inflated or “wholly fictitious.”

An accountant for more than 30 years, Sharma began his own business in 2006 in Edmonton under the name Tax Doctors Corp.

In February 2010, Chander was convicted of fraud and uttering a forged document in a different scheme that involved stealing $150,000 in income-tax payments.

He pleaded guilty in that case after being arrested in Arizona and extradited back to Canada, and was handed a 15-month jail sentence.

At the time of his sentencing judge Peter Caffaro labelled Sharma’s actions as “nefarious” and that he had “abused his position and betrayed the trust put in him by his various clients.”

In her written decision provincial court Judge Joyce Lester said that considering Sharma had already been incarcerated for an income tax-related theft, “he certainly knew he had a moral responsibility to follow the rules of both his professional association as well as society in general.”

Lester said Sharma had a high degree of “moral blameworthiness” in his actions.

“His actions seriously impacted a number of individuals, with devastating and in some cases, life-altering results,” Lester wrote.