St. Louis tax preparer arrested, accused of preparing 41 fraudulent returns

Date: April 16, 2024

Contact: [email protected]

ST. LOUIS - A St. Louis, Missouri-based tax preparer was arrested Tuesday after being indicted and accused of fraudulently preparing 41 tax returns for clients.

Shasherese M. Reed was indicted by a grand jury in U.S. District Court in St. Louis April 10 on 41 counts of aiding and assisting in the preparation of false and fraudulent tax returns.

The indictment says in 2015, the IRS revoked the Preparer Tax Identification Number (PTIN) assigned to Reed and the Electronic Filing Identification Number issued to her business, Sha-Sha Taxes, meaning she was no longer authorized to prepare tax returns for compensation. The indictment says that despite that, Reed prepared tax returns for clients from 2017 to 2022 using a tax preparation business, Majac Money, opened by her daughter and operated out of Reed's home.

The indictment says Reed prepared 41 fraudulent tax returns that used her daughter's PTIN and falsely identified her daughter as the paid preparer on the returns. The returns claimed false and fraudulent deductions for things like state and local taxes, business expenses, medical and dental expenses and mortgage interest, it says.

"Return preparer fraud remains a top investigative priority for IRS Criminal Investigation (CI). Our agency devotes a large amount of time and resources to presenting such cases to the U.S. Attorney for prosecution," said Special Agent in Charge Thomas F. Murdock of the St. Louis Field Office. "The IRS encourages taxpayers to be selective and to verify a return preparer's credentials before enlisting their services for a fee. CI will aggressively pursue those who present corrupt credentials and deceive honest taxpayers into trusting them."

Each charge Reed faces is punishable by up to three years in prison, a $100,000 fine or both a prison term and a fine.

Charges set forth in an indictment are merely accusations and do not constitute proof of guilt. Every defendant is presumed to be innocent unless and until proven guilty.

IRS Criminal Investigation investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan Clow is prosecuting the case.

CI is the criminal investigative arm of the IRS, responsible for conducting financial crime investigations, including tax fraud, narcotics trafficking, money-laundering, public corruption, healthcare fraud, identity theft and more. CI special agents are the only federal law enforcement agents with investigative jurisdiction over violations of the Internal Revenue Code, obtaining a more than a 90 percent federal conviction rate. The agency has 20 field offices located across the U.S. and 12 attaché posts abroad.

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