Tax preparer gets 30 months in prison

A Green Bay man has been sentenced to 30 months in federal prison for filing false tax returns as part of a fraud scheme that cheated the government out of three-quarters of a million dollars, according to the U.S. attorney’s office and court documents.

Moises Alcazar, 34, also received 12 months of supervised release once he finishes his prison sentence. He was sentenced Tuesday by Chief U.S. District Judge William Griesbach.

The judge also ordered that Alcazar pay $766,400 in restitution.

Alcazar ran Alcazar Tax Services from 2006 to 2012. In a plea agreement signed in September, he admitted to running two related tax fraud schemes in which he helped to file 128 false tax returns. They led to a total loss to the government of $766,400, the plea agreement said.

In the first scheme, Alcazar helped clients illegally inflate their tax refunds by making up false exemptions. For instance, he told clients to count children who did not live in the U.S. as dependents, according to the plea agreement.

In the second scheme, Alcazar used documents supplied by people in Honduras to file false returns in their names, the agreement said.

The case was investigated by the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation unit and prosecuted by the U.S. attorney’s office.