BOISE – A Washington man who owned a tax service business in Caldwell has been sentenced to prison for preparing falsified income tax returns for clients.

David Lee Brannum, 56, of Washougal, Wash., was sentenced to 12 months and one day in prison for preparing false income tax returns for clients of his business, “Dave’s Tax Service,” U.S. Attorney Bart Davis said on Thursday.

U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill ordered that Brannum also pay $101,550 in restitution to the IRS, and placed him on one year of supervised release after his prison sentence ends.

Dais said in a news release that according to court records, Brannum pleaded guilty in January to one count of assisting, advising, and counseling clients to submit materially false federal income tax returns to the IRS.

A plea agreement filed said that from 2003 through 2015, Brannum operated his tax service in Idaho and Nevada.

Brannum often claimed false and fraudulent itemized deductions for his clients, which had the effect of decreasing their tax liability and generating improper refunds. Specifically, Brannum inflated the amounts of his clients’ charitable contributions and entered amounts for unreimbursed employee expenses that were not substantiated, that he inflated, or that he knew were not allowable.

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